Why punish players who just want to play DoL DoH?

[Malevicton]

If this is inconvenient for you, then sorry. But let's not make it out like part of the player base is forcing their will on crafters. Crafting is a sidequest. The Main Scenario Quest is, well, the main quest. In almost all games ever you have to keep doing the main quest objective in order to unlock the side objectives. I don't see a problem.

Honestly the crafting gameplay is already far more extensive than any other MMO I can think of. It's still a sidequest though, and it being treated as a sidequest is not "punishment" for the players who happen to favor that sidequest.

Also, the msq is really not as insane of a requirement as this thread makes it sound. If you genuinely dont care about it at all and just slam through cutscenes you can be done before you finish reading this.

[Souljacker]

If this is inconvenient for you, then sorry. But let's not make it out like part of the player base is forcing their will on crafters. Crafting is a sidequest. The Main Scenario Quest is, well, the main quest. In almost all games ever you have to keep doing the main quest objective in order to unlock the side objectives. I don't see a problem.

Offline games, perhaps. I can't think of another successful mmo that forces questing in this manner. When an expansion hits, if you are at level cap, you step into the new expansion.

I understand that a sizable portion of this particular playerbase is perfectly ok with gating others out of content (for whatever reason), but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't have a discussion on the subject. Square made their bed when they decided to make crafting such a big deal in this game. It's only natural to expect those crafters to now feel bait-and-switched.

[Delily]

Offline games, perhaps. I can't think of another successful mmo that forces questing in this manner. When an expansion hits, if you are at level cap, you step into the new expansion.

I understand that a sizable portion of this particular playerbase is perfectly ok with gating others out of content (for whatever reason), but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't have a discussion on the subject. Square made their bed when they decided to make crafting such a big deal in this game. It's only natural to expect those crafters to now feel bait-and-switched.

How many other games are as story focused as FFXIV is? That's a distinction for this game.

[LunaHoshino]

Square made their bed when they decided to make crafting such a big deal in this game. It's only natural to expect those crafters to now feel bait-and-switched.

Crafting has always been treated as a secondary pursuit in ARR. It has always been gated behind story and combat (need to be lvl 10 to even unlock DoH/DoL classes, need to progress the story to get airship access and a mount for travel to get to nodes, need to rank up in your GC to access GC turn-ins) and it has never received as much promotional attention as the combat classes.

I don't know how people could come into this game expecting it to be as much of a big deal as the battle classes when it has always been portrayed as a fun bonus by SE themselves.

[GenJoe]

It's only natural to expect those crafters to now feel bait-and-switched.

Very much so. What people don't realize is that there are some people who ONLY do gathering/crafting.. and for the entire duration of ARR, it's worked just fine.

I happen to have a combat class at the ready but only because I did that before jumping into crafting, if I'd started crafting first, my combat class may have been stuck around lv 30 or so myself.

First they throw out the desynthesis limit at us.
Then now with HW, specialization.
and also the MSQ lockout.

It feels like SE is not wanting people to be just a crafter, there are more and more barriers to be a crafter now and you can't even do everything yourself, which was a big part of promoting FF14, that you don't need alts, one character can do it all.. Well, if you're into crafting, that hasn't been the case since Desynthesis came out and HW will introduce specialization which will also lock people into 3 classes at a time (whether that involves recipes, or just cross class skills, we'll have to see)

So yes, we're getting shafted again and again, it's only natural that crafters voice their concerns at this point.

snip

No, the problem is.. SE gave people the illusion of this, life of a crafter deal. Sure there were SOME gates in ARR.. But technically after you get your chocobo, you could go on to craft to 4 stars without any problems.. My alt is exactly at that point right now, she has the chocobo unlocked and is within reach of 4 stars. So for the entire duration of ARR we were given this illusion of you can play the game however you want, then with the expansion all of a sudden, some of the crafters have to catch up their MSQ from level 20 all the way to 2.55

Is it wrong that some of us had perceived a game where you could just be a crafter and nothing more? Because the game allowed it for the past 2 years perfectly fine without any issues, you can't blame some of us for feeling blindsided..


Don't get me wrong, it's not like I'm not going to run through the hoops to get Ishgard unlocked, it will probably take me a good 3 or 4 days since I'm still on 2.0 MSQ, it's just something that could easily be prevented/fixed if SE didn't care so damn much about access to Ishgard due to lore reasons.. Really, that's the ONLY reason we don't get access to it before 2.55 because of lore.. Seriously? When you can walk around freely in Ul'dah after being involved in the huge shenanigan that just happened, that's perfectly fine but SE is so worried about accessing Ishgard prematurely for reasons of lore accuracy?

[kyuven]

Offline games, perhaps. I can't think of another successful mmo that forces questing in this manner. When an expansion hits, if you are at level cap, you step into the new expansion.

FFXI required and still requires a quest to access Kazham, the Treasures of Aht Uhrgan zones, the CoP zones, the Adoulin Zones, and the Abyssea zones. You MUST be a minimum of lvl 30 to access most of those, and even the ones that don't have a level minimum require either a hefty sum of gil and/or drops from specific mobs that can be anywhere from the 20s to the 60s, or are simply beefgated behind difficult encounters.
EQ1 had a minimum level requirement of 51 to access the Planes of Power content beyond the new hub zone.

And see the thing is about the old level requirements...they were much, much harder to achieve than 50 is in this game. It takes less time to get all your MSQs done in this game than it did to get to 50 in EQ1 and FFXI.
Why am I OK with gating content? Because it has always and will always be gated. We need to be prepared before we step into the new zones, especially since all indicators tell me it'll be designed with i90+ players in mind, because something people ALSO complained about was the lack of "challenging overworld content" which they're apparently addressing.
I LIKE that they're doing this. It makes it so you can't just skip old content to get to new content.

Very much so. What people don't realize is that there are some people who ONLY do gathering/crafting.. and for the entire duration of ARR, it's worked just fine.

This is a lie. You were required to have a DoM/DoW at a certain level to unlock the crafting/gathering classes to begin with.
You were required to have DoM/DoW at a certain level to unlock Leves.
You were required to do MSQs to unlock GCs, which give you a more efficient means to get crafting and gathering levels.
You were required to do MORE quests with the GCs to get access to your chocobo, and more still to get access to the items required to make things such as Lucis tools. ("But you can get those from leves!" see above please)
You were required to have a DoM/DoW at 50 to unlock and do the Ixal crafting quests that are even more efficient.
Why is it such a stretch to expect you'd be required to meet certain conditions to make use of the new areas too?

[Malevicton]

Offline games, perhaps. I can't think of another successful mmo that forces questing in this manner. When an expansion hits, if you are at level cap, you step into the new expansion.

I understand that a sizable portion of this particular playerbase is perfectly ok with gating others out of content (for whatever reason), but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't have a discussion on the subject. Square made their bed when they decided to make crafting such a big deal in this game. It's only natural to expect those crafters to now feel bait-and-switched.

I never said we couldn't have a discussion, just participated in the discussion myself :/ Sorry?

Most crafters aren't only crafters. Most of them also participate in battle content to some degree. requiring msq just means that you have to have participated in the bare minimum of battle content. If this game had more of a crafting/battle dichotomy, then I could see crafters feeling bait-and-switched, but the demographic of people who want to craft exclusively is insanely small. Which is why I feel like this topic is blowing things completely out of proportion.

Like I said, if this is inconvenient, then sorry. That sucks. But no one is being punished, and the gameplay doesn't really need to be redesigned just so people can circumvent the majority of content and speed their way to the one thing they like.

[GenJoe]

Most crafters aren't only crafters. Most of them also participate in battle content to some degree. requiring msq just means that you have to have participated in the bare minimum of battle content. If this game had more of a crafting/battle dichotomy, then I could see crafters feeling bait-and-switched, but the demographic of people who want to craft exclusively is insanely small. Which is why I feel like this topic is blowing things completely out of proportion.

Like I said, if this is inconvenient, then sorry. That sucks. But no one is being punished, and the gameplay doesn't really need to be redesigned just so people can circumvent the majority of content and speed their way to the one thing they like.

It's true, most people already have combat classes at the ready, but a large portion of them don't have their MSQ up to date, still a minority, but it's always the minority of the player base that gets shafted.

Gameplay doesn't need to be redesigned to alleviate this, SE just needs to admit that Ishgard gating behind MSQ for reasons of lore is just silly.. When there are so many other things in the game that clash with the lore, might as well just open it up and let people access Ishgard without all that questing. I honestly don't see how this kind of change would affect other players at all, SE can still enforce a level gate to keep out the true unprepared adventurers.. When one of my character's core concept is that of a traveling merchant, much like Torneko of DQ series, or Chongara from Arc the Lad, it really sucks that I have to now make them into a seasoned veteran of combat

lmao, apparently having to play the game is considered "punishment" now.

Really? How would you like it if one of the 2.55 MSQ was catching a large fish for the Sultana's feast? Not even something you can do at level 10 FSH, or even 30 FSH, something hard to catch and you need gear for.. Say around 350 gathering stats?(~1 star gathering)If you want lore, you're in charge of seafood for the feast and otherwise you can't get into the Sultana's feast to advance onto the next quest and you'll be locked out of Heavensward contents before you do this. Does that sound like fun?

This is a lie. You were required to have a DoM/DoW at a certain level to unlock the crafting/gathering classes to begin with.

Sure.. to level 10, 17 if you want retainers (essential) 20 if you want Chocobo (optional)

You were required to have DoM/DoW at a certain level to unlock Leves.
You were required to do MSQs to unlock GCs, which give you a more efficient means to get crafting and gathering levels.

You still have access to leves from the major cities without, that's how I did it on my alt.
GC unlock, daily turn-ins are a nice boost, but again not a necessity.

You were required to do MORE quests with the GCs to get access to your chocobo, and more still to get access to the items required to make things such as Lucis tools. ("But you can get those from leves!" see above please)

For GC promotion yes, but other than the lucis mats, everything else you can buy from MB. Lucis tools are good, but 4stars can be done without.

You were required to have a DoM/DoW at 50 to unlock and do the Ixal crafting quests that are even more efficient.

Level 41 to be exact. Most crafters don't farm their own sealants btw, I don't think you need clarification on that part.

Why is it such a stretch to expect you'd be required to meet certain conditions to make use of the new areas too?

Because up until this point, everything was just a suggestion, a soft lock that you can bypass by the use of MB or making deals with other people. i.e. You could specialize as a crafter and have deals with people and you could maintain your identity as a Blacksmith, Armourer, etc. etc. You could even be Culinarian Extraordinaire! But with the HW requirements, it's a hard lock, no way to work around it. I know a crafter who's quitting the game just because of that reason, people like her are probably a rarity, but it DOES happen.. and for what?? Just to make the "lore" work? Seems like a small price to pay, sure.. But for what gain?? There is none. So they're alienating a very small portion of the player base, to please nobody.

[kyuven]

but it's always the minority of the player base that gets shafted.

Well, yes, because it's physically impossible to please everyone.
There will always be a minority that "gets shafted" whenever something new comes out. This happens in real life too.

[Delily]

It's true, most people already have combat classes at the ready, but a large portion of them don't have their MSQ up to date, still a minority, but it's always the minority of the player base that gets shafted

Gameplay doesn't need to be redesigned to alleviate this, SE just needs to admit that Ishgard gating behind MSQ for reasons of lore is just silly.. When there are so many other things in the game that clash with the lore, might as well just open it up and let people access Ishgard without all that questing. I honestly don't see how this kind of change would affect other players at all, SE can still enforce a level gate to keep out the true unprepared adventurers.. When one of my character's core concept is that of a traveling merchant, much like Torneko of DQ series, or Chongara from Arc the Lad, it really sucks that I have to now make them into a seasoned veteran of combat

How exactly are you getting the shaft? Seriously, how long have you known you needed to complete the 2.55 MSQ to gain access to Ishgard? At this point, if you have a level 50 battlecraft class and you haven't completed the MSQ knowing full well it's a requirements, the onus is on you to change, not SE.

The developers and designers of ARR have been very clear that this is a theme park raiding MMO. This is also a Final Fantasy game, where your character(s) have always been at center of these world changing events, thick in the action. I can't think of any game in the series where the main protagonist has been a travelling merchant.

The core design of the game does not support the concept of a travelling merchant, not for player characters. The issue here is SE has not built the game you want to play. They can not be all things to all people, ignoring the 800 lb gorilla of WoW, the cost of producing an MMO is so low the company needs to focus to distinguish themselves from other products in the market.

For FFXIV, that's the story. Unlike other games where the story is background or disjointed (WoW), or you follow a random set of disjointed quests to reach the endgame, and then go defeat big mobs because they're there, almost every activity in this game is tied to the main quest, or is related to it (Coil, CT).

The reason 3.0 is locked behind 2.55 is because the 3.0 story line is another chapter in the FFXIV world. Simply because you don't like it means you're not being punished, it means you're playing the wrong game.