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

[Souljacker]

No one is arguing to drop the storyline entirely - just trim it out a bit. They could get rid of 50% (maybe more) that is just fluff and everyone would still know what was going on when they hit heavensward.

Try this exercise. Try to remember all the quests you did for the MSQ. How many can you remember? Here's the answer: the 50% of the impactful ones that moved the story along. There are 346 quests in the main storyline and I will not believe anyone (aside eidetic memory) who says they remember every single one of them. They added filler for grind purposes and artificially inflate time it takes to complete, but now we are in new xpac - for what reason hold on to the old?

[RichardButte]

You are playing the wrong game then.

Here's a counter argument:
I play games for the story, and hope the gameplay is constructive in achieving that story.

Ultimately, the gameplay still has to carry itself (and it does), but the problem isn't that the story is bad or that we don't like story.

The problem is that most of the level 50 main story quest has no story involved with it and was just filler to keep us busy, and this cumulative filler is literally capable of driving players away from the game.

[StrejdaTom]

It would require some time but I guess it will be neccessary one day anyways to get rid of the MSQ filler quests.

I think it would be nice if the game asked on the beginning if the person wants to encounter whole MSQ or Filler-less MSQ.

.. But I am definitely against the idea of not having to do MSQ at all.

[Ayuhra]

If anything they need to just trim down on the post 50 quests. Some of those were fantastic, an overwhelming number were just scuttling around doing chores. Fine for when you are still in ARR, less fine if those chores are keeping you from your friends and more leveling content.

[Atrayl]

If the MSQ was not required to do dungeons and raids, and was not required to access the expansion, would you quit the game? If you didn't play the game, and someone told you that the story content was there, but optional, would you decide not to play the game because of that?

I highly doubt the honest answer to either of these questions is "yes."

And yet, the opposite is not true. There are many people who will quit the game out of frustration stemming from the MSQ grind. There are many people who will dismiss the game after being told they will need to do 30+ hours of mostly fetch quests before they get to start the 20+ hours of mostly fetch quests in the expansion before they get to do end game content.

What is the benefit of forcing everyone to do the main story quests? It certainly doesn't make more people understand the world and the story. I skip everything and I honestly have no idea who any of the characters are outside of their appearance. I don't know why we're going to Ishgard. I don't care. Forcing me to do tedious fetch quests will not make me understand or care about the story that I don't want to experience in the first place.

What's the point? How will it hurt you, if you enjoy the story, for it to be made optional?

[Tuathaa]

If the MSQ was not required to do dungeons and raids, and was not required to access the expansion

I hate to say because I know I am going to get flamed but that attitude would only help to increase subs and attract more people away from other mmo's

[Voltyblast]

You are playing the wrong game then.

Here's a counter argument:
I play games for the story, and hope the gameplay is constructive in achieving that story.

What if the story is bad then?

Just because it's a Final Fantasy it doesn't mean that they can get away with that: the latest Final Fantasy games proved how much that gameplay is important rather than story telling, especially ARR which alone is a living proof that story alone cannot guarantee a fun game and that gameplay is required to make a game actually fun to play.

I have heard people liking the story of 1.0 and all of my friends pretty much agrees that the story was better (I never played 1.0 so I can't judge), but here we are into an expansion of a complete rebuilt game because the game was now fun to play again and people really liked the new changes.

And I think that the story isn't the main reason for its success. Or at least not entirely.

However I won't say that a story can't be done: some people like it and some people don't (I'm in this category), but just because some don't like it doesn't mean "it's the wrong game for them": I like some RPGs even if their stories are bad but it doesn't mean it's not for me. I just focus on other aspect of the game rather the story.

And as far as I know, the main story isn't the only aspect to enjoy from this game.

[RichardButte]

What's the point? How will it hurt you, if you enjoy the story, for it to be made optional?

The only hurt may be butthurt from lore snobs, but I see 0 actual harm in it.

This is why FFXIV could benefit immensely from a "When last we left the warrior of light..." kind of recap every so often.

[Ayrie]

All I can hear in this thread is: "Mom! More cheesy-poofs!"

Ya'll want DRK now, but don't want to do the same work everyone else did to get it. Feels like you want us punished for being existing, faithful, customers.

Look at it from that side... Then realize dork knight is still there waiting for you. I promise, its not going anywhere.

The MSQ post 2.0 is tedious and redundant in the running in a circle aspect... But they are just warming you up for Dravania... That place... *shudder*

[KisaiTenshi]

If the MSQ was not required to do dungeons and raids, and was not required to access the expansion, would you quit the game? If you didn't play the game, and someone told you that the story content was there, but optional, would you decide not to play the game because of that?

I highly doubt the honest answer to either of these questions is "yes."

If the story content is optional, then people wouldn't play it for more than a few hours. They would play it just long enough to get to the logical end of killing the hardest monster... forget about the dungeons and raids.

Part of the game's design is that the entire point of doing the dungeons in the first place is that something in the storyline requires it. If you skipped everything, that is your loss. The storyline content has to be weaved in with gatekeeping the content to keep people from just grinding in one place.

If you notice, the average dungeon only needs to be run 3 times to level out of it so you can play the next one. Once you unlock everything, you can play any other job/class and not have to unlock them again. IN OTHER GAMES YOU HAVE TO CREATE A NEW CHARACTER AND UNLOCK ALL THAT STUFF AGAIN. So instead of complaining that you have to unlock this stuff at all, look at how the armory system removes the need to do all the main storyline 12 times.

But again, in some other games, the ability to actually play all the dungeons is available at level 1, but people just grind on the one dungeon that is the most experience efficient and ignore everything else. And for what? Get to the maximum level and then ... grind a new character?

In other games player typically won't do content that isn't required. Such is the case with Crystal Tower and The Binding Coil of Bahamut, and the Extreme Primals. In FFXIV this content is "hard" content. The fact that DPS have such long queues for any dungeon is indicative how much content players are NOT participating in. The fact that it can take 2 hours to get a DF PUG for these hard parts of the game tells me that you're barking up the wrong tree, and making the storyline optional would just have people do the dungeon content once to clear it and then never again unless they want the full gear collection from that dungeon or are trying to do the relic weapon quests.