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

[Linadae]

Personally I think the best way to ease the tedium of the msq is a better use of the linkpearl Minfillia gave you. Instead of just her/others telling you to return to the Waking Sands/Revenant Toll they could just complete the quest over that and send you on your way from there.

Swtor did it with the Holocoms and WoW added in the remote quest turn in. At least like SWTOR, FF14 has a lore reason why you're getting a call from halfway across the continent.

[Isondre]

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.

I feel like a lot of the people who are saying "just enjoy it, it's good for you filthy casuals" have not tried leveling a new character recently.

[Isondre]

As someone who plays on an RP server and RP's extensively, I'd like to not have to do the MSQ on alts. I did it once, I know what the story is. I don't feel the need to do it again to bring an alt to Ishgard.

Oh my god, this. Please just let me get to 50 if I've already completed the MSQ once. I know, I know, "Why do you need a second character." But I'm a roleplayer. Alts are my playstyle, I like having a skinny Elezen thaumaturge and a beefy Roe warrior, not one character that does everything.

Please don't punish me this much for the way I like to play the game.

[Isondre]

If they've played any MMORPG in existance and are discouraged by XIV's grind to max level, they have to be exceedingly lazy.

It's not the level that's the problem. Getting to 50 was easy; grinding 3 billion boring fetch quests is what is making me want to shoot myself.

[DkDerek]

Honestly? It's laughable. I love this game, don't get me wrong...but if I was new, there would be absolutely no way that I would continue playing after I hit level 50. Not only do you have days of quests (that give literally no reward), to do, but you actually have to gear to ilvl 90 for the trial before HW. You are forced to grind out gear, that is 100% irrelevant. This is 2015. This isn't EQ days. MMO's have been around for a long time at this point, and it's time for developers to evolve. Not go back to what made EQ a great game. The days of grinding need to come to an end. It's not fun. When a grind is finished, you feel the thrill for a total of 15 seconds. I hit level 60 today, and when I should have been completely thrilled, I just moved on to the next thing.

Being forced to do something is bad design. The more subs FFXIV gets, the more content we should receive. Let's try and dethrone WoW. Change this please.

[CaptainMiles]

This is a great idea. I would suggest cutting out all the fluff quests and just have people do the battle that are needed. There is definitely room for trimming.

[DkDerek]

It even goes beyond the useless quests though. If you have 4 hours to play after work (which I would say is even above average), and you are on a story quest that involved a dungeon. You better hope you have a friend playing a tank or a healer. As we speak I've been in queue for a story-line dungeon for 67 minutes.

[Altanas]

Personally I think the best way to ease the tedium of the msq is a better use of the linkpearl Minfillia gave you. Instead of just her/others telling you to return to the Waking Sands/Revenant Toll they could just complete the quest over that and send you on your way from there.

That's how Minfillia did it in version 1 actually. It was actually pretty neat seeing NPCs use their linkpearls =)

[AnaviAnael]

As much as I talked about being for the HW content being gated behind the MSQ, I also have to agree with abridging the ARR quests. I get why a lot of them were there; the filler quests aided in giving exp for the next level. However, with the new exp bonuses they're giving, it's hardly necessary anymore. Nobody would notice if they took out a fetch quest to bring soldiers some tea.

[RichardButte]

You mean the go to point A and B, go inside the mansion for one measly paragraph of text?

No, I mean the part where it's actually interesting and gets to the point rather quickly.

Yes, quests send you places and have you click on stuff, but there's a massive difference between doing it for a bit and doing it for a hours and hours on end.

More ACTUAL story happens in the first 5 MSQs in HW than in 30 of those at the 50 MSQ.

2.0 Dungeons and Trials teach you so many mechanics about the game though.

No one is advocating NOT doing those. Are you reading anything that people are saying to you or are you just rampantly apologizing for horrible quest design?

Look, I've lost friends to how much of a horrendous grind the story quest is in this game, as have NUMEROUS other people, and these are people who have played MMOs for years and can handle a bit of grind. The story quest grind is just THAT bad by comparison...

And looking over this thread, I am FAR from the only one who has had this experience.

That's money walking out the door, and it DOESN'T HAVE TO BE! It's perfectly possible to preserve the integrity of XIV's storyline while also not drowning players in it.