New Jobs Gated Behind Completion of 2.0 Story?

[Duuude007]

If someone joins the game because they want to play one of the new classes

Fixed that for you. People have many reasons to get a game but the core reason is to play the game.

Only a 'special' few want immediate handouts of everything that normally must be earned, this is no exception.

[Magis]

Fixed that for you. People have many reasons to get a game but the core reason is to play the game.

Only a 'special' few want immediate handouts of everything that normally must be earned, this is no exception.

The "what if a new player wants to play DRK" comparison is pointless. What if a new player wants to wear the 2nd Coil gear cause it looks cool? Should SE give that also at level one?

[ExKage]

The "what if a new player wants to play DRK" comparison is pointless. What if a new player wants to wear the 2nd Coil gear cause it looks cool? Should SE give that also at level one?

I hadn't thought about it this way until I read this. I can see this point. If you say, "well jobs/classes are a core concept of what they're marketing this mmo as" I would argue the same thing about the story and lore of it. Hell they made a big deal about splitting 2.5's Main Story Quest into 2 parts because it was so long (The cutsceeeenes) and it is the push into Heavensward.

[Firepower]

I don't like comparisons to FFXI (pre abyssea) to FFXIV, I remember the time I spent in FFXI getting jobs to 75, in fact the majority of the time spent in FFXI back then was WASTED time WAITING for an exp party that didn't suck.

I don't see the exp curve being lowered pre-50 as it is currently easy enough, what they could do is raise FATE exp back up to what it used to be. At the start of ARR fate exp was much much higher than dungeon exp (they buffed dungeon exp a lot and nerfed fate exp) This would spread the players more evenly between FATE's and Dungeons potentially easing the queue times for some who would rather take the dungeon route.

You then have the 50 barrier which leads to other questions:

1) is 50 cap going to be gated behind ishgard or can people just level to 51 straight from 50, this COULD* completely bypass any difficulty in completing the main story to get to ishgard.
2) Currently the best gear in the game is i130/135, is level 51-59 gear going to be better or worse, If there is not a level 50 quest gated behind the main storyline I could envisage square putting new i90+ gear for 51-59 either dropping from quests or easily craftable with standard easy to get materials. This would completely remove any need to grind for any gear as it would be as easily obtainable as all previous gear to 50.
3) If the cap is gated behind ishgard, I could also envisage square appointing some side quests for level 50's to get some of the ancient gear pieces the previous dungeons dropped which you could immediately convert into the original job specific mythology gear from release, alongside ifrit/garuda/titan to get your relic it wouldn't be such a task to be i90 for steps anymore I could imagine if you sped through it all your biggest road block would just be waiting to do the trials in duty finder if you was a dps class.

After reading through this thread and coming to some conclusions of my own I don't see the Ishgard barrier being as high as I once believed it to be

[Verdan]

Y'all are crazy.

[Ecks007]

And again, you ignore the time spent between the major patches gearing up.

How long it took you to get to 40 in XI has nothing to do with how long it would have taken a new player to get to 30 when CoP came out (which is essentially where we are in XIV at Heavensward).

You make it sound as if gearing up is a difficult thing. It's not. It can be a little rough at first, sure, but once you get going and accumulate tomestone currency it becomes that much easier with each new piece you get and once your ilvl is high enough run some CT instances on the side to fill in as interim upgrades. Normal "Hardmode" dungeon drops can also help fill the void until you get better gear that replaces it.

Sure, okay, it takes a little extra time to gear up. So take the time and do that and then unlock the story. Considering the requirement is only i90, that's a piece of cake.

A new player reaching level 30 when CoP came out would have still taken them at least a few months and that is without bothering to do anything else the game informs you of, like unlocking and leveling subjobs or unlocking your chocobo. Personally I can't imagine starting the game and not leveling up a job properly. You'd be such an ineffective player until you finally did the right thing and worked on a subjob that would benefit you. Nobody leveled a job without a subjob unless they were specifically trying to do that as a personal challenge just to say they did it. Otherwise it made you undesirable and unwanted, not to mention nowhere near as good as other players of your same job.

Ultimately it still would have taken about the same amount of time, and even more likely that it still would take less time unlock the new jobs in XIV than it would have in XI (new player at CoP launch, like you said).

[Mugiawara]

I don't see the problem. It's called an expansion for a reason...
I don't even know why most of anyone here is complaining because most of us finished the MTQ.
If you're that concerned help the newbies out and level them up so they can get the new jobs then.

[kyuven]

snip snip FFXI

Funny you mention this...cuz FFXI actually does almost exactly what FFXIV is doing with the new jobs.
Certain jobs require certain expansions to unlock. This is, of course, a given and inconsequential to new players since you have to buy the full pack to get access to the game now anyway.
However, within the game, certain jobs are ALSO locked behind certain content.
Going back as far as RoZ, you had to access new expansion zones and get to a city called Norg to unlock Ninja and Samurai. This...was not an easy journey at the minimum level, and it could take MONTHS to reach the minimum level required (it takes about two days in the current game. Tops. Because of adjustments to make the lvl 99 cap actually conceivable to reach)
Then there were the WoG classes, which required accessing the WoG zones and traveling through VERY high level zones to complete the quests.
And then there's Geomancer and Rune Fencer, which require going through a very high level area to reach the new city.
In short, FFXIV's new jobs will be content gated, but FFXI's new jobs were beef gated.
I'll take content gates over beef gates any day. because content gates don't lie to you.

[Jandor]

The "what if a new player wants to play DRK" comparison is pointless. What if a new player wants to wear the 2nd Coil gear cause it looks cool? Should SE give that also at level one?

Well. When I made my character I chose to be a Hyur Foestriker jacket, but through hard work and many hours of enjoyable story and questing I managed to turn into a High Allagan jacket. It was great.

My mum (a cavalry cuirass) is incredibly proud.

[Velhart]

I hadn't thought about it this way until I read this. I can see this point. If you say, "well jobs/classes are a core concept of what they're marketing this mmo as" I would argue the same thing about the story and lore of it. Hell they made a big deal about splitting 2.5's Main Story Quest into 2 parts because it was so long (The cutsceeeenes) and it is the push into Heavensward.

I wouldn't say the 2.5 story was so big it had to be split. More like the devs split it to give something within the 5 month waiting period for the expansion.