Why punish players who just want to play DoL DoH?

[Necato]

That would be fun... exit the Warrior of Light, here comes the Farmer of Light !
Gaining access to Ishgard by crafting the best carpet for the Archbishop's bedroom ! While the DoW/DoM had to fight gods, dragons, the Empire, save the world every week-end, twice on Tuesday, had to attend banquets, kill people, travel across Eorzea and beyond, take Brayflox's cheese, had to put up with Alphinaud & Minfilia on a daily basis, use the Duty Finder... all of that, without being paid of course.

There's no punishment here. There is a reason why we can't access Ishgard from day one and suddenly we are "allowed" in the Holy city. We almost died for them, some of us trying to DF the Steps before the nerf, lost their sanity in the process.

[wicked-one]

It's pretty sad that players who wish to play like this will be locked out form Ishgard due to MSQ gating.

The true question is, why would someone...

Honestly, the content mentioned seems to sum up in one word, ... work xD

Up until now I haven´t even considered people out there completely ignoring all the the adventurous content.

[Craiger]

You just have to get up to ilvl90 and go through easy story content. Might take a while if you haven't done much before, but it's a game about adventurers, not crafters/gatherers... The fact that SE have made crafting/gathering so interesting(not to me though), doesn't change that fact...

It's like complaining about having to do combat in an action game, when you only want to explore things... Bad example I know, but couldn't come up with anything better. The point still applies though.

You had to do stuff with your DoW/DoM to do some of the crafting content too, so it shouldn't really surprise you that much.

And to the people who says that players will leave because of the gating of 2.55 story... that's not going to happen. The amount of players that play like the OP(or rather, not playing), is like 0.00001% of the community... and most of the other players wants to experience the story too. If you're not done when the expansion comes, I'm sure the duties in the story will be nerfed even more to make it quick and easy for you.

[Dgsoil]

While I personally would not care if they offered you a way to do the story as your choice of DoH/L, this is obviously not something they want to do as they have stated. And even thinking it would be logical to be able to rework the entire storyline (And yes, they WANT you to experience the story) or even add a new quest-line equal to the MSQ in less than 30 days is just... wrong. Instead of trying to change what is already basically set in stone, maybe try to appeal for them to make it possible for the NEXT expansion instead. As of now it is just a case of suck it up and do it or don't and fall behind, and if playing the market is really your idea of fun then I doubt you want to be behind the initial wave.

[Umo]

What makes people who want to do DoH/DoL stuff rather than combat less important than anyone else?

The story created around fighting against dark forces and saving the world, as already said so many times.
It's not that you, as a person, are less important than anyone else. Your 'crafting/gathering character' is less important than any 'combat character' for the Holy See and the Dragonsong War conflict, just the same way any 'combat character' who has not actively aided on the Steps of Faith fighting against the Dravanian Horde is less important than a 'combat character' who did so. Again, from a story point of view. Something this game is heavily focused on from start, like it or not.

[Felis]

The story created around fighting against dark forces and saving the world, as already said so many times.
It's not that you, as a person, are less important than anyone else. Your 'crafting/gathering character' is less important than any 'combat character' for the Holy See and the Dragonsong War conflict, just the same way any 'combat character' who has not actively aided on the Steps of Faith fighting against the Dravanian Horde is less important than a 'combat character' who did so. Again, from a story point of view. Something this game is heavily focused on from start, like it or not.

exactly this

Holy See: "Have you helped us defending Ishgard against the dragons?"
[yes] : "Welcome to Ishgard, friend"
[no] : "Go away, stranger. No entry pass for you"

[Whiteroom]

I find it amazing that this is viewed as punishment. I realize and hate that the word entitlement gets thrown around in mmos too much, but to think that SE should devote that many resources and change the game that much for such an obvious minority...

[Delily]

I dont care about the combat in this game. I dont care about the storyline. I just want to experience the new DoL DoH content, race my chocobos, tend my garden and be part of the community. I dont think thats too much to ask in an mmorpg. Im happy with the game that way and gladly pay my sub for that content available to me. Locking the expansion behind 100+ required combat centric quests after already reaching 50 with a combat class is disheartening.

I wish they would've said from the beginning at 2.1 that these quests were required to unlock the expansion.

This is a FF game first, MMO second. That means the story trumps all, and the primary means to advance is through combat; literally, every other game in the franchise has been like that. Your request would be akin to me asking the developers of the Harvest Moon to allow me to grow my farm by fighting monster and using the proceeds to pay for my farm, which doesn't make sense, because that is not the core design of the game. Locking the expansion behind the completion of the 2.1 story line is nothing new; in FFXI, you have to complete the original story to do the RoZ quest lines.

SE is not punishing you, you just want a different game.

[Galdous]

Reminds me of the first year of ultima online. My friend never had a combat skill but would go around mining and had enough taming for a wolf pet. No one would kill him since a lot of the server bought from him.

Some people just like being a normal crAfter.

[Kiara1]

If Square were to start catering to people who just want to craft/gather and do nothing else, they'd have to sacrifice other content in the game to make it happen, so I rather have them not do that.

What would they really have to sacrifice?
They could remove all the locks on content that is locked behind the main quest and they would solve it.

Personally I think the main quest is rubbish and I would love if they made it optional.