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

[Titor]

Also, do you want to know the main reason they did this? To deter RMT from spamming the "I love you too" friend request and spamming you tells while you are in Heavenward area... For this reason alone, EVERY single new player must go through all of 2.0 main missions, no exception. 60 hours worth of content for each RMT bot that has to reach Heavenward is a lot of work. I rather not have the market board being flooded with items gathered by mining and gathering bots in HW areas...

Other games are able to combat RMT without locking new players behind 100+ hours of quest delivery content.

[MasamuneBranford]

FFXI is one, and it used to be their main flagship online RPG. The first two expansion for FFXI locked out some areas from players - and Chains of Promathia main story is a nightmare to complete when it was first launched. All of our complaints about FF14 is pale in comparison when you have to deal with FFXI expansion and add ons. FF14 is a walk in the park in comparison, SE went out of their way to spoon feed you and put a comfort blanket on all of us.

You weren't locked out of starting COP if you didn't beat Zilart. Yes - you couldn't do the final Apocalypse Nigh quest if you didn't complete both Zilart and COP - but you could always start COP and jump into the promies. With Heavensward - you can't see a single new zone without having fully completed a real reborn. Big difference.

[Voltyblast]

I have to say that this thread really cheers me up: I was starting to begin that only few people actually thought differently about the MSQ and how it can halt a new player's progression. Sure this doesn't affect me, as I beated the content long ago, but it does affect new players such as my sister who hoped to return to FFXIV in the expansion only to find that she had to do ALL of the old content before even entering HW (and she's level 49).

Alas, she never will.

But yes I do wish that the story would be shortened in someways: I know that the game focuses a lot on story (be careful with that though: let's not forget what 1.0 taught us) but I can't lie that I barely cared about it because it was barely about story and more about "do this and that". I didn't even see the ending of the story because my excitement died long ago but I know people do like the story and everyone is free to have their opinion.

The best idea would be to make the 2.00 story optional to follow but if that's not possible, I'd love that they'd remove the dungeon parts and similar (or make them soloable?). If it wasn't for those parts the MSQ wouldn't be such a big issue and it would just be a matter of "go here and go there", without being worried about gear. It would take a lot of time, but it wouldn't make a new player actually halt and gear up before proceeding.

I don't know how much the MSQ has changed right now because I'm not currently playing the expansion, but I'm pretty sure there are dozens of ways to improve the MSQ to new players.

I mean, I had Chrysalis as a trial once and even with people full 130 we wiped at least 5 times. I can't imagine those new players with half the gear, and half the knowledge in tactics...

[Luvbunny]

2.0 Dungeons and Trials teach you so many mechanics about the game though. I'd hate to have a bunch of new players who are unfamiliar with how the game mechanic works and what you are suppose to do.... Again, as much as I want everyone and the whole village play this game, it is best when only the one who care enough about FF (and its quirkiness) stays. Otherwise you get player of the month who play for 3 weeks and decided to quit because "there are too much story to deal with". Those type of players are better off play WoW or Destiny where stories are pretty much optional (or in some case, there is not much story to begin with lol).

[MasamuneBranford]

2.0 Dungeons and Trials teach you so many mechanics about the game though. I'd hate to have a bunch of new players who are unfamiliar with how the game mechanic works and what you are suppose to do.... Again, as much as I want everyone and the whole village play this game, it is best when only the one who care enough about FF (and its quirkiness) stays. Otherwise you get player of the month who play for 3 weeks and decided to quit because "there are too much story to deal with". Those type of players are better off play WoW or Destiny where stories are pretty much optional (or in some case, there is not much story to begin with lol).

But they aren't fun anymore. If you started from scratch - you literally have 75+ hours of quests that you wipe the floor with (as a result of higher item levels / etc.). That's a huge hurdle to get to a challenge (that people still actually play). A lot of people can't have fun with a game unless there is a challenge.

[Luvbunny]

If you start from scratch at level 1, you CANNOT wipe the floor with higher item level, level 1-50 you gotta go through massive 35 hours level grinding doing MSQ and opening up dungeons. Endgame dungeons at level 50 are optional but you definitely want to do them to be able to get lvl 120 gears which are better than the starting 115 gears in HW, plus you can upgrade to 130 which last you till lvl 55.

Dungeons that you must complete for MSQ are not something you can sneeze at, just because horay level 120 (which will take you awhile to gather gears). Some of the mechanics are still deadly if half your alliance are new (and refuse to do any research beforehand). Steps of Faith, even after the big nerf - still causing party to wipe over and over (yes, even on Japanese server...). Keeper of the Lake with a bunch of newbies, could potentially causing wipe or two, or at least 45-60 minutes long run.

Obviously if you were gone during patch 2.3, you can catch up a bit faster, since you have less to do. But please be aware, 3.0 is a massive snooze inducing fetch quests in your first 3-5 hours, no action jackson here. If you love skipping the CS, 3.0 will give you twice the amount of fingers exercise, get your "skipping CS macro button" at the ready. They designed 3.0 in the same structure as 2.0, 4 hours of "exploring" while giving you decent 115 starting gears, then mix it up with "solo instanced" missions. It will take you a good 5 hours or longer to open the first dungeons, only to realize, you need to be lvl 52 (which should be fine if you do daily roulettes + plus FATE + quests + MSQ).

Also the first few dungeons on 3.0 is not a big challenge at all, they are rather easy to do, even if you go blind without instruction (assuming you are well versed with 2.0-2.55 dungeons mechanic). It's the same trick that SE pulls with 3.0, easing players to new contents, gearing them with basic gears to be sufficient enough, peppering them with fetch quest and long CS to break the pace of "dungeon grinds". Don't expect 3.0 to be "OMFG ACTION JACKSON Shoot Everything" Challenge to the Waazo!! At least not till you hit the conclusion and do the endgame stuffs.

[Lewtskie]

I can use the analogy of Games of Thrones, which is now just wrapped season 5. Do I want a 5 minutes version of season 1-4, so that I can catch up to Season 5 NOW ASAP RIGHT THIS MINUTE OK!! Absolutely not! That would be dumb and pointless. I want a rich storytelling (and their inane filler quests). Plus there is always the skip CS button when I don't feel like I want to watch poorly written dialogue. You can't skip cs or loading scene in Destiny, the atrocities!!

A more accurate analogy is FFXIV is like those Shonen Jump series like Bleach or Naruto or w/e where as in every season you'll find ludicrous amounts of episodes where as the only thing to happen is slice-of-life bullshit. I'll admit to watching Naruto, I was curious and it was popular to people. The parts with action were exciting enough and the story was stupid, but interesting. But for every couple episodes where they fought a big baddie, you had an entire episode about the main character having explosive diarrhea and the whacky hijinks that ensues. That show didn't need episodes about shitting, and this game doesn't need quests about going to the market and picking up fucking tea leaves-GOD DAMNIT TATARU, YOU LAZY MIDGET I HATE YOU.

[Luvbunny]

But they aren't fun anymore. If you started from scratch - you literally have 75+ hours of quests that you wipe the floor with (as a result of higher item levels / etc.). That's a huge hurdle to get to a challenge (that people still actually play). A lot of people can't have fun with a game unless there is a challenge.

MSQ 2.0-2.55 should be take a lot less to complete due to the increase in XP boost from level 1-50 (if new players are doing the MSQ, Roulette, FATEs, weekly challenge). They want everyone to get up to speed for 3.0, but other than giving everyone "instant 50 button", the game still will take a good 35-50 hours to finish for 2.0 before you can arrive in 3.0

[Alindra]

I came back about a month before the expansion (hadn't played since 2.2) and it took me over 2 weeks to get through the extended story. And then I just had to go through 3 days of grinding to get Astrologian to 50, so now I can start the 3.0 story.

I think at the very least they should make you be able to access Ishgard as long as you own the expansion. Then at least people who started playing for one of the new jobs can pick it up at 30 and play the rest of the story as it, if they want. Then they can use the 2.1-2.55 extra story quests to help level past 50 in multiple jobs.

[Isondre]

Thank you for posting this. Really well put.

I totally agree. I am catching up right now but I am not enjoying it in the least. I'm sure each chunk of the main story was fun when in manageable chunks over a few months with nothing else to do, but it is absolutely overwhelming and tedious all put together. It's getting harder and harder to convince myself that it's even worth it to get to the Heavensward content, and I also have friends who I don't think I will be able to convince to do all of this. It's not that I don't want to know the actual story, but each chain is hours of find kids / make tea / teleport here / talk to a goblin / wait in a DF queue for like one actual cutscene that really advances the plot.

PLEASE streamline this or make some of the questing optional for those who want to be completionist. It's just crazy and frustrating, and it makes me sad that even if I do all of this, I probably won't be able to get my friends to play Heavensward with me.