Quote Originally Posted by GenJoe View Post
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.