Gating the whole expansion

[Reinha]

You mentioned the story as your reason.

You missed the point I think. The story is the only valid reason needed because it's the basis of this game. It's what the developers use to pace content. I wasn't trying to give any other reason. Just because you are tired of hearing it doesn't make it any less valid. It's the same thing if someone said "Can anyone give me a good reason why we have to level up without saying BUT BUT BUT CHARACTER PROGRESSION!!!" or "Can anyone give me a good reason why we have to play with other players without saying BUT BUT BUT MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER!!!". Ignoring counterarguments you don't like to hear doesn't make your own argument stronger.

There's my edit in case you missed it. But I'll humor you and won't use the word story.

It's a themepark MMO and removing different gating systems (for example level requirements, dungeon and raid completion requirements, reputation requirements) would make it more like a sandbox MMO. You assume sandbox is more fun because it offers more freedom, but your assumption is wrong. There are people who prefer completely linear themepark games like FFXIV and changing it into a sandbox game would ruin their fun. The thing is, sandbox games already exist so those who prefer that style have enough options outside of this game.

WoW made too many changes in their recent expansion and lost a third of their players in only 3 months after 10 years of success. Changing the core of a game is risky and I would hate to see FFXIV go down that same shameful way. The lead developer of this game has also stated that they design their game with existing customers in mind and a change of this magnitude would violate that decision.

[Catwho]

Can anyone give me a good reason without saying "BUT BUT BUT STORY!!!!!!" And that's literally what you did was give the story as a reason. Nice exaggeration though.

The game is REALLY fun even without paying attention to the story. That's why not everyone cares.

The NPCs in Ishgard sell iLvl 115 gear and they don't want you to have access to the areas unless you've already gotten to ilvl 95 through other means.

[DreameR7g]

Snip

You know.. you are the literal definition of a Strawman logical fallacy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

However, I'll bite: You cannot access the content unless you complete the prerequisites, just like any other advanced content. Heavensward was never intended to be an expansion to *Basic* content. It doesn't matter what the prerequisites are, whether they be the main scenario or something else entirely.

[Raim]

Story is a good enough reason to justify it. Not to mention content longevity so that people don't just ignore all the previous work the developers did as soon as they hit 50. Back when I played WoW I would have LOVED if they locked me in each expansion and forced everyone to do the older expansion raids and dungeons. People need to know it exists or existed.

[Talia_Hailwind]

No thanks, I don't want gil sellers in my heavensward thank you.

[Tadacho]

How can someone be OK with paying for an expansion and being the required level only to find out that they have to run through tons of stupid Pre-expansion bullcrap quests in order to access the main content that they paid for?

But all those "pre-expansion bullcrap quests" are also a bulk of the content from A Realm Reborn, which is a game you bought and subscribe to. How can somebody be OK with paying for a game and wanting to skip over all the content to play an expansion to a game they paid for?

The expansion is a continuation of the story, in a new setting. If you don't like the story perhaps you shouldn't be playing, or paying for, anything.

[Kyonika]

Star Wars as very story based as well. So "not all other mmo's let you skip the story" as far as I recall during "Rise of the Hutt Cartel" if you didn't finish the main story or your class quest story line, you weren't able to get into the new planet to get the new story for the new raid/trail thingy. If you were Sith, and you didn't do the opening quest to the planet, you didn't get to do anything.

That's comparing apples and oranges here. SWTOR's MSQ stuff was all entirely, without exception, single-player content. Meaning, no group finder or duty finder stuff needed to progress. Every expansion can be worked on solo: they didn't lock you out b'cuz you didn't complete x,y,z 8-person operations and a-thru-e 4-person hard modes and stuff.

This game, on the other hand, does.


I'm currently stuck behind a DF quest until I can get a healer or a ranged dps at a high enough level to continue, and then pray - when the time comes - that that DF is still relevant enough for ppl to click DF. But what I'm really dreading is the post 2.0 stuff. Endgame stuff. The stuff that many had done or will only do only once and hope never to touch again (cuz it's hard af).

Any one know if there is a way to throw money at SE to make the problem go away?

If not I'm seriously considering hiring a friend for $1000 with too much time on their hands to power level & grind out all the stuff in the way to Ishgard, and record all the cutscenes and boss fights for me. I'm not even joking. A minimum two-year lockout just to play content that I just purchased seems a little cruel and unusual.

Personally, I really only care about getting the 3 new jobs from this expansion. Everything else is secondary.

[TamurilRains]

I agree with Kyonika. I also agree with people saying that its story based and it wouldn't make sense to just waltz into the new areas. But you know what else doesn't make sense? Forcing people to do content that the vast majority isn't interested in doing now, which means the wait times for trials and dungeons are longer now (even as a tank) because everyone is playing the new content....nobody sees a problem with this?

[Edellis]

The point here is that this is a big problem. How can someone be OK with paying for an expansion and being the required level only to find out that they have to run through tons of stupid Pre-expansion bullcrap quests in order to access the main content that they paid for? The answer to me is it is NOT ok and a total stupid move on SE's part. I paid for the expansion and am the required level. Yet I am STUCK doing pre-expansion bullcrap.

Why on earth are you even playing this game if you just want to skip everything?

Do you not know how to read? Did you do NO research on this before spending your money? They have stated multiple times that everything in the expansion is story gated, just like everything in 2.0 was story gated, just like I assume everything in 1.0 was story gated.

Why do people keep doing this?

* Players must progress through the main scenario quests introduced in patch 3.0 to access new areas.
* Players who log out in these new areas cannot log back in using a platform that has not registered Heavensward.

This is one of the first things they mention in the patch notes for heavensward. I don't get the whining from people who refuse to read or do any research on stuff, nor do i understand the logic behind buying a game like this one just to literally skip all the content.

This is what the trial period was for, the first thing you should have noticed is that the scenario quests are paramount for progression.

[honkwu]

Well tbh im new only started a few days ago and only got to level 30 been exploring the crafting system and everything first im going to try focus on my leveling now they added the double exp for the story quests but im also quite happy about the expansion been gated least this was i can actualy see all of the original game instead of just getting to 50 and skipping all content

i know that more than likely i probably wont get to see the 50 raids played as they do now but at least ill still get to see them

im new to FF but i have played alot of MMO and seeing as how enix have told you all that the expansion can only be accessed if you have done all current story quests i kinda see its your only fault if you cant go into the expansion why should you be rewarded for lazyness