Why punish players who just want to play DoL DoH?

[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.

[Laurell]

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.

The story is also centered around the idea of rebuilding - Which, judging by the photos and developer dialect, is something Ishgard appears in need of.

[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.

[Terribad]

. 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.

Not true at all. I've been playing MMOs for years and I've played almost every one out. It's only a very small few that requires you to do all the main quests to do side things like crafting. Even then, the ones that require main quests usually just require you to get out of the starting area.

[Dante_V]

Lets be real here, these "100+ quests", some of them can be completed in less than a minute and amount to "run here talk to person x" or "kill these 5 monsters". Skipping the cut scenes (apparently the OP doesn't care for the story) would make them go even faster. You could probably get a large chunk of it out of the way in a couple of days if you really wanted to. You still have 3 weeks left and have been given over a months notice. None of this is unreasonable and it's not like they are forcing you to beat heavensward before you could craft. Also battle duties are gated behind the story also it isn't just crafters, everyone has to do it.

[Delily]

Not true at all. I've been playing MMOs for years and I've played almost every one out. It's only a very small few that requires you to do all the main quests to do side things like crafting. Even then, the ones that require main quests usually just require you to get out of the starting area.

I keep alluding to this, but this game is not a MMO wrapped in FF branding, it's an FF game wrapped with MMO elements. The story is the main focus.

[DarkDedede]

Do we have any indication of how much expansion content, especially related to crafting and gathering, is going to be locked by the main scenario?

[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.

[Gyson]

I think it comes down to accepting that one class can not do everything, no matter which class we're talking about. Just as those who focus solely on adventure can't craft or gather whatever they want without putting the time and effort in to master it, those who choose to focus solely on crafting can't expect to have access to an area that is only open to adventures who have used their combat skills to win the hearts of Ishgard.

[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?