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

[KisaiTenshi]

You do know that the story ends long before people stop raiding, right?

Conquering the hardest raid content is the carrot in the majority of MMO on the market, including this one.

And if you don't play the story, you wouldn't even know it was there! The raids are not the be-all-end-all to this game. There are plenty of people who don't like it.

As I said. This is a Final Fantasy game, the story is integral. People play this game because they want a month-long ride through the story. Are the side-quests tedious? No not really. They exist entirely for gaining experience so you don't have to grind in one spot just to get to the next level like other boring-as-hell MMORPG's. When I tried Aion and Tera... all I can say is "What storyline? What's a raid?" It seemed like the entire purpose of the game was to pay into the cash shop.

A proper RPG game is story driven. Stuff happens, you do stuff to resolve what happens. Is that hard? The optional sidequesting is optional. There is no "filler". Some of the content introduced between patches are designed as time sinks (eg the relic quests), or gilsinks (crafting furniture for housing.)

As I've said, and many others have said, you are playing the wrong game. You are not entitled to have the end of the game handed to you by buying the next chapter. In other MMORPG's that have been out for YEARS, they retool the storyline primarily because future content needs to be retconned because each chapter or so has a different lead producer who doesn't care about the lore as much as the last guy. Now take a look at V1 and V2 of the game. Aren't you glad you didn't have to play all of V1 to play V2? There are a bunch of us who did play V1 who would never want to play V1 again except for the storyline.

[RichardButte]

After playing heavensward I can tell you for a fact if you don't have any idea what is going on in the story you're going to be so abysmally confused it will burn.

And many people just don't care. They'll play an MMO regardless of whether or not they understand the story if they like the gameplay, crafting, housing and/or a specific class, etc.

i dont get it why people want to play a game just to hit max lvl with a class o.o...

And I don't get people who play an MMO to roleplay, but that doesn't mean I should tell them not to, nor that their $15 a month is worth less than mine.

If someone plays new content without doing the story quest, how does it affect you personally?

Answer to a rhetorical question: the money they pay still feeds into development to create more content that YOU enjoy.

As I said. This is a Final Fantasy game, the story is integral.

This is an MMO. No, it isn't.

You can hit ESC to skip literally every cutscene in the game and still enjoy other aspects of the game, and be paying SE $15 a month to do so.

People play this game because they want a month-long ride through the story.

People play the game for whatever reason they want to play the game.

You reason is the story. It won't be the same for everyone.

And again, their money is just as good as yours or mine and we WANT SE to have that money.

[Katzyn]

I feel like the fetching and such quests help to establish a timeline - a lot of our main events happen over a long period of time, not over days, and I feel like not only would actual time be saved (which...yes, would probably be a good thing...) but it would make it seem like events happened even quicker than they actually did in game time.

I guess if a person didn't actually care about the story or timeline, it wouldn't matter so much. Personally, I like having the sense of "x amount of time has gone by" and having it drawn out a bit. But, I also like that it always gives me something to do when I log in, so I can't just spend 8 hours on a day off from work to blaze through all the story content.

[Ransu]

I'm ok with it right now but as the game gets older they are definitely going to need to do something to streamline the process for new players. The "filler" content with traveling back and forth just to talk to an npc can be pretty irritating at times and unnecessary once the content becomes old.

[Havenchild]

Finally after having beaten the Story Mode of Heavensward, I can say I was very happy with it. Every single quest, stayed consistent with propelling the overall story quickly but well paced.

Now as for ARR, I have to divide into two sections: The story up till the fight with Ultima Weapon, and then the story after.

Up till the battle with Ultima, players are tasked with first familiarizing themselves with the world of Eorzea but are soon thrust into a chain of fate as they rise to combat the Primal threat that the beastman tribes pose, resist the Garlean army and come to understand the threat of the Ascians (Paragons) being the manipulators in the background. Yet despite these urgent tasks we must embark upon, we must first make a fine brew of wine to serve at a local party. After which, we embark on tasks from locating fisherman, to giving people back rubs. The story eventually, comes around again after we serve soup to some soldiers and we initiate the final showdowns against the empire.

Problems: The story of ARR is good but it is so convoluted with filler fetch quests that it's entire premise can almost entirely be lost until you face the next primal threat or hit level 50 and combat the imperial threat.

Fixes: Some potential fixes would include:

1) Reorganization of Main Story Quests.
2) Completely converting the MSQ quests that detract from the main plot, into side quests and adding in new quests that propel the story line elements better.
3) Similar to option two, you could get rid of quests from the MSQ, and instead increase the EXP of lower level dungeons, or MSQ related quests, so that you can propel through much faster. This would allow for a more constant element of story progression that would bore players much less.
4) Clean up some cutscenes. Some cutscenes could have been part of quest chatter, with either a character coming into the scene without it needing to be a cutscene for example.

Now the Post Story for ARR had some improvements. The main storyline became seemingly divided by 3 separate stories which ran homogeneously. The quests themselves, remained vital to whatever storyline they fell under. However in my opinion, there was very bad transitioning between the quests and the hopping from story to story too rapidly. My biggest gripe with the way the quests were structured, was one quest would have you accomplishing something vital in uldah, then your in Coerthas the next quest, then two quests later back in uldah, now were fighting a primal, then in uldah again, then back to coerthas. Granted to some degree this is present in the Heavensward but the quests in Heavensward are better connected by an element. For example, the key & bismark section.

Fixes:
1) Probably my most major one on this. I understood that with the release of patches, content would be interwoven. However what needs to be done imo, is the quests need to be placed in a more episodic order. So for example, have us finish all of the tasks in Coerthas, then move onto all of the tasks regarding Ascians / Primals, then all of the tasks in Uldah. When you finished that patches events, the next set begins again. The bouncing back and forth between the stories so rapidly to me, really hurt a lot of that post-story. It felt sloppy and inconsistent to a degree and only got worse as we moved closer to 2.55.

[Luvbunny]

This thread is funny, people complaining that this game has way too much story driven MSQ (yes a few of them are boring fetch quest, but hey, you get decent amount of xp for 5 minutes work, skipping ESC button ASAP). Again, this is FIRST and FOREMOST, Final Fantasy Game, it is one of their main flagpole in the series. You do not play FF games for a Destiny type of "can I just skip the entire game so I can go pew pew uhm OK!!!".

Again, they could have done it so that if you buy expansion, you can get the Ishgard, just to unlock the three main jobs, that's it. With the main requirement you must finish the entire main story up to 2.0. You cannot do any quest there, you cannot leave the main city of Ishgard, you cannot get ANY abilities past 50. Pretty much just to be able to get there, and start the new jobs in the MSQ 2.0. This would please a lot of players, but regardless they will be stuck in having to finish MSQ in its entirely from 2.1-2.55 if they want to progress past 50 and access HW. At least they can now do it with one of the three main jobs. Small changes that would make a BIG difference.

[Cid_Grim]

What's the point of playing the game if you hate it this much?

The game is great, I vote to not ruin it with this terrible idea.

[Lewtskie]

This thread is funny

And you're hilarious with constantly going so far out into left field screaming at people saying that they want to "skip the entire game" when the obvious majority here, and the reason for thread in the first place, was for a positive middle ground. But no, it's nothing but extremes with you, isn't it? Just has to be one thing or the other, either no story or all story, and anything else just flies over your head.

And complaining about too much story in the MSQ? Again, everything just zooms right over you. The major complaint is that there isn't enough story in the MSQ. We WANT story, not slice-of-life drivel that has us doing something stupid and irrelevant.

[Luvbunny]

And you're hilarious with constantly going so far out into left field screaming at people saying that they want to "skip the entire game" when the obvious majority here, and the reason for thread in the first place, was for a positive middle ground. But no, it's nothing but extremes with you, isn't it? Just has to be one thing or the other, either no story or all story, and anything else just flies over your head.

And complaining about too much story in the MSQ? Again, everything just zooms right over you. The major complaint is that there isn't enough story in the MSQ. We WANT story, not slice-of-life drivel that has us doing something stupid and irrelevant.

Learn to read, I proposed a middle ground. The main reason this thread exist is people want to access HW and the 3 new jobs so they can start leveling them ASAP. And not being gated behind 20 hours of MSQ from 2.1-2.55. I bet they will be fine going through those MSQ since it gives them XP and rewards they would need anyway while waiting for dungeons. The "slice of live drivel" is driving me insane too if you gotta swallow them in one sitting. But if you spread it out, they are good for a "break". Though gating three new jobs in HW is definitely a bad idea. Let people get those, so they can level them to 50. But lock any areas outside Ishgard + all 3.0 quests + main mission until you finish 2.55 MSQ.

If you feel 2.1-2.55 are full of "irrelevant boring mundane crazy inane" quest, you will absolutely HATE Heavensward with passion. Since it is bigger longer further more annoying fetch and find stuffs hidden in nook and cranny with barely even a guide telling you where things are. These are all fine if you take your time slowly and enjoy the game leisurely. But if you want flying NOW and all access NOW, you will bang your head against the wall.... not again!!! These insane quests must go, and all these run around with no end in sight and for the love of god, where are these thing??????

You might as well join the line in the complaints department about those "hide and seek" quests, even main quests to get aether is "hidden" under layers of chain quests, and every single zones is full of "hide and seek fetch quest" from point A all the way here, to point B all the way there far far, and then back again and there again - it's borderline INSANE. Everything that annoys people in 2.0 about these "drivel garbage" is triple magnified in 3.0.

[RichardButte]

Again, this is FIRST and FOREMOST, Final Fantasy Game

This is first and foremost an MMO, and the tired rhetoric of "BUT IT'S FF!!!! IT HAZ TO BE ABOUT TEH SOTRY!!!!" is both untrue and antiquated as a concept.

This is an MMO, a genre were people play the game for different reasons.

Your reason is story, and there's nothing wrong with that, but INSISTING that everyone has to play it for that reason is as valid as someone else insisting that YOU need to clear the hardest raid content AND win 10 Triple Triad tournaments AND attain BiS in all endgame crafting and gathering professions (or insert whatever else YOU don't enjoy doing here) before being allowed to play HW content.

Really, is the knowledge that people might be playing and enjoying FFXIV without having gone through the story quest going to hurt you somehow? :P

What's the point of playing the game if you hate it this much?

Not wanting to grind through hours upon hours of "story" quest with very little actual story in it ≠ hating the game.

There's plenty of amazing content in FFXIV. The MSQ doesn't fall under that category for many people.