A serious discussion about abridging the story quest 1-50 (discouraging new players)

[Rand_althor]

I agree.
I started playing the game less then a month ago. Spend most of my time doing low level stuff, once I realized I need to finish all the story quests to reach HW I started leveling my Dragoon, lvl 37, Friday. Reached 50 and while the prospect of doing all those quests annoyed me a bit it went better then expected considering many of those quests helped me reach level 50.
The issue begins after the quest "The Ultimate Weapon", most of the quests beyond this point (I have yet to finish this), are as stated go there- talk to this person - come back, which really started to be boring.
I can only imagine what new played in a few month/years from now will feel if this decision stayed which is way the idea the OP suggested seems great, created some kind of "video" or a quest text to quickly tell all that happens in between the more major quests with the option of completing the quests later.

[RichardButte]

It should stay as it is in basic principle, no one should get a skip ahead to HW content if was up to me.

*snip*

First of all, "tedious" ≠ "challenging". A monkey pounding on a keyboard could finish all of the story quest at 50 (except for the trials and dungeons, which are the best parts). Something taking a long time to do doesn't mean it's good content, or fun, or worth doing, or difficult.

Second, the problem with the story at 50 is that it's actually self-defeating in how badly broken up and fragmented it is.

Imagine taking an episode of "House", then stretching an hour worth of actual story to 24 hours, including showing us filler scenes of Hugh Laurie doing things like making breakfast in silence or watering his plants. These pointless scenes would occur between the actual interesting part of the story where he's trying to determine what bizarre illness the patient has.

The end result of this highlights the irony of "wanting players to experience the story": everyone would be fast forwarding through the boring parts of "House", just as you better believe that, by the 30th fetch quest in the 50 MSQ, EVERYONE is going to have entered "escape mashing mode" because they've been drowned in so much boring filler that they no longer have the patience to sort the genuine story from the fluff.

So again, not only will an abridging system make the MSQ at 50 vastly more tolerable, but it'll also ensure that MORE players actually see the story.

[Eisen-Zorn]

There is a section between levels 27-30 that requires you to go meet the Sylphs. That part of the story is so slow and pointless that I warn people about it.

As for the abridged story for new players, you really can't do that. There is an actual story reason why your character is not allowed in to Ishgard, so just play the game and work through it like the rest of us.

[KisaiTenshi]

The storyline in Heavensward is amazing, thus far. I'm really, REALLY drawn into it whereas I was only mildly interested in the storyline in ARR. A tip of the hat to the devs for that.

But that brings me to the primary issue I'm seeing with the current way the storyline works in ARR content...

...

I say this because I've literally been unable to coax two of my friends past the amount of story quest that this game has. It's not quite as bad if the story is really grabbing you, but if you're only mildly interested in it, it's enough to make people not want to play any longer, even with the promise of fun raid encounters in the distance. :\

I think the problem here is that you are trying to force your friends to through the storyline instead of letting them enjoy it.

In every RPG... there are two reasons why people quit:
a) It's too grindy.
b) It's too boring.

The first problem is more easily rectified by having their friends actually help them. I'm far more willing to redo storyline than I'm willing to redo bloody kill-and-fetch quests.

The second problem is that it's not the right game for your friend. Yes FFXIV needs a little more coax'ing to get to where the storyline feels important (In FFXIV V1.0 I never really got into the storyline because there was no real direction in what you should be doing next.) At least V2.0 doesn't do that.

What would improve the quest system just enough to solve B is to delineate the difference between Main Quest, Class/Job quest, and Optional quests. The optional quests are just for experience and gear and aren't repeatable. In order to get to level 30, you have to actually do the main quest and the class quests and if the people you play with are having trouble with the class they picked (maybe whatever they picked is no fun, think about the queue times.) Once you get to 30, you have the extra required-to-do-but-not-evident Job quests which are setup as optional quests.

So that's a lot of stuff to do just to get on the "right track" with whatever role you want to play in the game.

[Tuathaa]

But you're given level 8 gear only to have it replaced with 12 gear in just a couple more quests.
It's not all that different, really.

Given level 8 gear is way different than grinding level 8 gear.
It's also a moot point if they are rewarding 110 gear now unlike the way it was

[RichardButte]

As for the abridged story for new players, you really can't do that. There is an actual story reason why your character is not allowed in to Ishgard, so just play the game and work through it like the rest of us.

Abridging the story doesn't mean not telling it. It means summarizing it so that people can get through it in a reasonable amount of time instead of a massively long slog which is mostly filler.

The 2.0+ story wasn't that bad if you did it over the course of a few years as it was released, but to have to do it all in one cluster is a chore to say the least.

Our experience isn't the same as that of what a new player is facing right now. That's why I feel it should be abridged.

[Aylin]

I'm one of those lucky bunch who quit quite awhile ago (right after Moggle Mog was added) and came back for Heavensward.

While I am enjoying parts of slogging through the main story quests (the rewards are nice!), a lot of the inane quests (find these kids who are hiding! Deliver uniforms to these 8 people! Run back and forth between Whitebrim and Dragonhead 15 times!) are what are making it painful. I have no problem with having to catch up on the storyline to move forward it just... it feels like it's taking a lifetime. I just did Snowcloak last night, but already my friends are 53+ and flying. It's not a great feeling to miss out playing with them, which is a big part of the reason I came back. :/

I would be ecstatic if there was a way to cut out the "b.s." and still hit the important parts of the story on the way to finally access the material I dropped money on. :|

[Luvbunny]

FF14 is a Final Fantasy games first. If you ever play any of the offline FF games, most are littered with mundane quests and side quests that encourage exploration (and to showcase how dumb the npcs are) - mostly are contents that add "hours of gameplay". It is a story driven game, so be ready to deal with it. It is no different than Dragon Age or Skyrim, where you do a bunch of quests - kill X enemies, go fetch me my stuffs cuz I am too lazy to do it, BAM 100 hours of "gameplay". Honestly if you want a game that lets you get into the action with very little story, you can play Destiny - ignore the non existent story and dive in straight into the action.

[RichardButte]

I think the problem here is that you are trying to force your friends to through the storyline instead of letting them enjoy it.

I'm not forcing them through anything. The game requires them to go through the storyline to access new content. I'm not even rushing them.

The problem is that every leg of the story quest is 1 part actual story and 10 parts boring, pointless filler. The end result is that going through the 50 MSQ is an ordeal instead of fun. :\

And I help my friends with the parts I CAN help with (trials, dungeons, etc.). There's nothing I can do to help anyone with fedex quests.

[Eisen-Zorn]

Wanting to skip through the main story just so you can get to the new jobs and content is like wanting to play FF VII, but wanting to skip to disc two because it's old and you can't be bothered.