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

[Amelia_Pond_Behemoth]

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.

Yes, but you couldn't even begin the Zilart story until you finished a good chunk of the vanilla story.

I think both sides here want the same thing. That the players enjoy a rich story in Eorzea. What the topic is merely asking for is that they trim out the excess fat. I liked the analogy I saw that compared the main story to a marthon session of TV. No one wants a 5 minute synopsis in order to start on season 2. We just don't want to slog through the commercials.

[Kayote]

Ok so after getting my 2nd character (this guy, long story), up to the post 2.0 quests... its really not as bad as it was before. You get gear upgrades (up to ilvl70 so far) plus a decent amount of exp towards 51+. If you really dont care about the story, or seeing it all yet again, just skip everything and port everywhere. Yeah its time consuming since there is A LOT of filler but since there is no need to keep up with ilvl, and the miracle of DRK's balancing out the dungeon queues for all classes, its not much of a big deal. I was happy when I realized I wont be needing to grind CM again, just one and done.

Not that Im ever going to be against letting players skip the 2.X story if they so choose to. Its still a nuisance that can deter new players and old alike who just want to get into current content or new classes. All im saying is its not as bad as it was before and can be pushed through without many roadblocks.

P.S: Anyone know if the new MSQ rewards give weapon upgrades? Id rather not do the relic quests ATM and the jerks on my server are actually trying to sell grey ilvl115 weapons for around 50k when you can probably buy one at Ishgard for a couple thousand, if that.

[Pikachu_Pizza]

I started ARR last week and noticed a majority of the quest are "Go talk to this guy who's right over there for me". Needless to say the slow pace and constant long conversations and cut scenes did not hold my attention and around level 15-20 I just started skipping them. I want to play with friend who are already 50+ and dread the grind I wll have to do at 50 for story sake. Why grind out gear when it's useless as soon as you buy the stuff in the first HW area? Idgi.

But I will give the Heavensward story a shot. Maybe it will hook me on the lore going on atm.

[Atrayl]

No opponents of making story content optional have answered the question "how would it negatively affect you?"

Because there is no answer. They are objectively wrong on this issue.

[cougarel]

No opponents of making story content optional have answered the question "how would it negatively affect you?"

Because there is no answer. They are objectively wrong on this issue.

Really? Is that hard to really understand that by undergoing the story, you learn certain mechanics of how the game and the class you are playing function? But then again, why bother explain over and over again this fact. The story forces you to enter different dungeons and primals which have different mechanics.
Yes it has a negative impact as the player won't play only with his friend. In certain situation he will need to interact with other players and by not having any experience and understanding of what he is doing , he is ruining the gaming experience of the other players involved.
Q.e.d

[Tuathaa]

Really? Is that hard to really understand that by undergoing the story, you learn certain mechanics of how the game and the class you are playing function? But then again, why bother explain over and over again this fact. The story forces you to enter different dungeons and primals which have different mechanics.

You mean by reading tool tips and going out and killing things like people are doing now with alt jobs? This argument has no validity.

[cougarel]

I could swear as I finished the MSQ just 2 days ago in order to advance to the new content, that I had to make dungeons and primals with different mechanics.. But then again, I must be playing a different game and live in another reality. Point is this is a mmorpg : It is supposed to be like this, you need to invest time and patience in order to truly enjoy the game content. Why even bother to play ff if not going through the lore, please do answer this.
There are other crap games which are free to play out there, do play those because those have that shortcut.

[Souljacker]

Really? Is that hard to really understand that by undergoing the story, you learn certain mechanics of how the game and the class you are playing function?

Exactly what in the MSQ teaches us how to play? I don't recall any cutscenes that told me how or when to use my cooldowns as a warrior, or how to make decisions on the fly about what cures to use as a white mage. THAT is what we are talking about here - the absolutely pointless 'run here. talk to this person. bring this note to xyz, go track down tataru for the 99th time because we can't think of any other way to bring you to this random place so this random person can be introduced' that doesn't move the story along in a meaningful way and adds zero value to the player's experience. 300+ quests isn't necessary. It just isn't.


Dungeons aren't even necessary, really. All you need to know about SE dungeons is how to strafe, dance, and memorize a pattern because that's all they are. No one is learning anything meaningful in Satasha that they couldn't learn at max level when they go into experts by reading the tooltips and practicing at the dummy.

[Exotik_Legacy]

Really? Is that hard to really understand that by undergoing the story, you learn certain mechanics of how the game. The story forces you to enter different dungeons and primals which have different mechanics.

Q.e.d

I believe you are not understanding exactly what we are saying, We do NOT want to SKIP the ENTIRETY OF MSQ, All we are asking is that the patch quests from lvl 50 up to 2.55 before heavenward get trimmed back from these fetch quests etc, Having this insane amount of quests is not fun, its long and time consuming, they were filler quests for patches to keep people busy before heavenward dropped. going from 1-50 is no issue, its the quests at lvl 50 between the new lv 50 msq they added up to 2.55 which is where heavenward cuts in, it takes an extremely long time to sit their burning through crap that no one wants to deal with when all we want is to start playing the content we purchased and looked forward to playing.

[Tuathaa]

Why even bother to play ff if not going through the lore, please do answer this.

Exactly how is going across a map to pick up a box of tea or any other unrelated item to the msq breaking lore? It's not and was added as a filler to keep max level players active.