New Jobs Gated Behind Completion of 2.0 Story?

[LineageRazor]

it's a reason itself, because this jobs are into a city we can't reach until we complete the story explaining of why we can enter this city. is not gated poorly, its link to the lore, the jobs we will get acces are directly link to ishgarde.... ignoring this and giving this jobs to anyone that haven't the right to step into ishgarde is bad in too many way.

The thing is, the new jobs are in the city of Ishgard because the devs decided to PUT them in Ishgard. They didn't have to. They CHOSE to. They could have put Astrologean in the Observatorium, Machinist in Mor Dhona or Limsa, and Dark Knight pretty much anywhere. They could even have put them in one of the other new areas, assuming that those new areas can be accessed without passing through Ishgard.

The devs had every opportunity to make the jobs accessible; they didn't have to be gated behind the entire 2.x storyline and 90+ ilvls worth of gear, but for some reason the devs decided that was a good idea.

I argue that this was NOT a good decision to make. If you want to sell more copies of the expansion, you need to include stuff that both new and current players want to have. Right now, the expansion isn't offering much to new players, and in particular alternate jobs are one of the biggest possible selling points for new players. Less incentive for new players to buy the expansion means less sales. Less sales means reduced revenue. Reduced revenue means we current players get less love since there's less money to spend improving the game for us. Everyone suffers from the decision.

It is certainly possible to use lore to defend the gating of the new jobs - but the devs WRITE the lore, and they could have written it in such a way that the jobs could have been accessible. But they didn't. I'd like to know why.

[KarstenS]

I argue that this was NOT a good decision to make.

Actually we do only know, they decided to do it this way. We do not know, what is their reason to do it this way. So before we can say, which arguments are better, we need to know their arguments. Actually we don't.

[Bluevann]

...

If you want to not care about the game and the direction it has taken with the first expansion (which, for an MMO fan, should always be a big deal. It is to me.), that's your decision. No reason to be so nasty to people who do.

The thing is, the new jobs are in the city of Ishgard because the devs decided to PUT them in Ishgard. They didn't have to. They CHOSE to. They could have put Astrologean in the Observatorium, Machinist in Mor Dhona or Limsa, and Dark Knight pretty much anywhere. They could even have put them in one of the other new areas, assuming that those new areas can be accessed without passing through Ishgard.

The devs had every opportunity to make the jobs accessible; they didn't have to be gated behind the entire 2.x storyline and 90+ ilvls worth of gear, but for some reason the devs decided that was a good idea.

Thank you. I have been intending to point this out all night last night, but couldn't because I had reached my posts-per-day limit (seriously SE, why is this still a thing? I'm using a lv50 account on these boards..). To say "it makes sense because Ishgard is locked" is a dead point, because the NPCs, de facto, did not HAVE to be in Ishgard, just as Dragoon was not in there.

It's not too hard to put an NPC out of the gate and say something applicable at any point of the story regardless of the PC's MSQ progress, such as:

"The current situation with the Horde is calling for drastic measures, such as recruiting despicable sellswords and adventurers such as yourself. I do not expect the devotion of an Ishgardian soldier from you, but perhaps you could still prove yourself useful. Take this sword, hone your skill, and return to me for when you'll be ready to do our bidding."

Now that's not hard, is it? Yet the developers decided not to, and after 50 pages we still haven't been told why.

[Aeyis]

Now that's not hard, is it? Yet the developers decided not to, and after 50 pages we still haven't been told why.

Why does it matter so much? Some people would question everything about a game's design, it seems.

[Mugiawara]

Why does it matter so much? Some people would question everything about a game's design, it seems.

I feel like if you bought HW, you should have access to the job's. Essentially, HW is useless unless you played 2.55 story finished, the only thing newbies would get out the box is the CE items
and Au'Ra race...unless they change it somehow. Because when you think about imagine 5.0...you get I dunno...SAM or something, you can't get it until you finished 2.0-4.0 story.
That's too long. I just don't like the fact it's stuck behind the story. It's fine now since it's easy to run the story, but later on I don't think they should do this anymore.

[Lexia]

I feel like if you bought HW, you should have access to the job's. Essentially, HW is useless unless you played 2.55 story finished, the only thing newbies would get out the box is the CE items
and Au'Ra race...unless they change it somehow. Because when you think about imagine 5.0...you get I dunno...SAM or something, you can't get it until you finished 2.0-4.0 story.
That's too long. I just don't like the fact it's stuck behind the story. It's fine now since it's easy to run the story, but later on I don't think they should do this anymore.

I feel that the people that really wanted to play this game have already picked it up and been playing and people that are now picking it up are just jumping on it cause is the cool thing to play or along that line but that just my opinion.

[Bluevann]

Why does it matter so much? Some people would question everything about a game's design, it seems.

That's the point of caring for a game. I'm not sure you've realized, but this is a big turnaround on how FFXIV has been up to this point. It has always been newbie-friendly (again, I'll bring up the example of being able to go to mor dhona as a lv1 character to get the black bikini from the NPC), exploration is very doable at any level, thanks to the monsters' reset feature, and things such as sprint. The three jobs released before HQ, were also newbie-friendly, with classes available at level 1 (arcanist) and 10 (rogue), and the jobs did not require MSQ progression, even when they could've (Ninja).

The turn-around decision they've made with Heavensward's jobs is mind-boggling and as a costumer I'd like to know what's up, what took the developers to make this decision. I too am suspecting this is being done with the idea to "ease" the servers by gating jobs in an unaccessible area to part of the playerbase, but for as long as we won't get an answer, we won't really know. It is very certainly a questionable decision that to me and others deserves some insight.

As I've said many and many pages ago, to question or criticize is not a sign of hate, it's a sign of care. Defending blindly SE's decisions just because "it's done, accept it" is to me only a sign of lazyness or general uninterest, and I mean, fine by me. Some people will check labels on the food they buy, others will just hoard the cart without looking past the price. But there is absolutely no reason to tell to the first group of people that "NO, YOU CAN'T ASK.".

[Mirakumi]

Pulling things from a hat here - so don't get rage mode on me.

SE has said during the PAX that it does take them one* year to make a new class.

Perhaps they didn't want everyone being able to get it from the get-go. They wanted the class to stay "fresh."

That or MAYBE, maybe...

Because people have been asking about having some sort of reward for being in ARR for so long...(They have been asking for some sort of LEGACY thing ((Legacy gets a cheaper bill/ Tattoo/ chocobo.) ....

Maybe the gated classes are the gift to those players who have been around for ARR.
Maybe....

But don't go apeshit on this. I'm just brewing ideas is all.

Here is Legacy Campaign: (new players prob don't know about this.)
http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Legacy_Campaign
http://www.ffxivinfo.com/service.php

[Aeyis]

That's the point of caring for a game. I'm not sure you've realized, but this is a big turnaround on how FFXIV has been up to this point. It has always been newbie-friendly

Always? I'm not sure you realized, but it was not all that newbie friendly in 1.0

As I've said many and many pages ago, to question or criticize is not a sign of hate, it's a sign of care. Defending blindly SE's decisions just because "it's done, accept it" is to me only a sign of lazyness or general uninterest, and I mean, fine by me. Some people will check labels on the food they buy, others will just hoard the cart without looking past the price. But there is absolutely no reason to tell to the first group of people that "NO, YOU CAN'T ASK.".

You have that backwards. I see no point in arguing about this particular thing, as its nowhere near as much of a big deal as you are arguing.
Why you are you blindly attacking SE's decisions when these particular ones have no real effect on the game?


Caring is not the same as arguing about every small detail of a game....