Forcing us to the entire story quest to unlock the new classes is just bad business

[SuzakuCMX]

Has anyone ever considered that one of the reasons that the HeavensWard story is gated is to reduce RMT spam/influence.

Consider how difficult it would be for RMT to make a char get it to 50/MSQ then shout in a new area and then get deleted.

Instead of hating on SE hate on the RMT atleast in my opinion this is the reason why the content is gated other wise there would be no true reason to gate it.

I've never seen RMT shouts anyways. They've always been friend requests and nonsensical PM spam.

[Tuathaa]

Has anyone ever considered that one of the reasons that the HeavensWard story is gated is to reduce RMT spam/influence.

Consider how difficult it would be for RMT to make a char get it to 50/MSQ then shout in a new area and then get deleted.

Instead of hating on SE hate on the RMT atleast in my opinion this is the reason why the content is gated other wise there would be no true reason to gate it.

If that's the reason then they failed horribly.

[ZodiacBrave]

Damn, I have actually read all of this for the past hour and a half. If I may chime in..

Personally, I agree with OP that they should at least allow players to get the 3 new jobs if they at least bougt the expansion regardlrss if they finished 2.55 or not. Just have it open for everyone. Now i ve been told (er chewed... a lot) that the entirety of the expansion is gated because lore and story and whatnot. They could have always tweaked that story to at least allow the new jobs for everyone, like an Ishgard emissary or something as someone pointed out. For the new areas, it\\'s the players risk if he really wants to go there underleveled, at least he can go there. For the new dungeons and raids, im fine with it being gated in story similar to the low levels, or perhaps an alternate unlock like Dzemael Darkhold or Aurum Vale.

[ZodiacBrave]

Now for the new jobs learning curve, it's the player's responsibility to get to know the job he is playing. Of course that is at least minimum expectation. But I believe that should not be closely tied with needing to do the earlier dungeons in order to be familiar with the mechanics as people also pointed out. Learning your job and learning the mechanics of the dungeon can be done separately.
Not letting people to at least try the new jobs because of expected negative feedback from party members may not be a good excuse. The communication is already toxic and they'll come up with any excuse if they don't get the results they want.

I see nothing wrong voicing out concerns like OP and some likemind supporters, no need to shoot them down for having a different opinion. As for me, I also voiced a similar concern as I myself was a returning player. Now, I let the frustration and dyed hype get the better of me and will take a break for awhile.

[Tuathaa]

The only real reason people can't go to the city now is because of SoF. After you get there you just wander around until you run into some that says something similar to "hey kid want a job?"

[LegendWait]

Yeah but lets fast forward to 3-4 years from now. What if they introduce a new class in the next expansion, are they going to make someone who loves the way the new class sounds have to level 1-70 and get through the storyline? When does it stop? Why is it at that point to begin with? Just because you did it in a game that released 10+ years ago doesn't mean you do it because its tradition? Getting a character to 50 and finishing the main Ultima storyline would of been plenty enough, not force people to go through hardmode trials/dungeons and 100 fetch quest.

P.S. thanks for the edit tip, was unaware.

They are meant to make you a better player, if you'd pick up a new job right away and play end game, you aint gonna have a good time. See it as a reward for your efforts.

[Rorichan]

I'm just going to pipe in here and point to the part of the patch notes that say they made leveling faster through the older content so that lower levels can catch up faster?

From the patch notes: [2.0] The number of experience points granted by main scenario quests up to level 49 has been increased.

http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest...c6199e5a#event

Also, I stopped playing FFXIV because of various reasons and came back for the expansion. When I did, I had a patch and a half of content to get through before Ishgard. I finished those on the first half of early access and am now level 55 and trucking through Heavensward.

It doesn't take that long to catch up, really.

[Wournsfeik_Untawhasyn]

...Lightly gated... starting ToAU

Were... were you a new player when ToAU was shiny, new, and relevant? Because I don't think you really understand what stood between a new player and Treasures of Aht Urghan. Maybe the mechanical requirements don't look so bad, but the effective requirements on the other hand.

You either had a friend carry your ass into ToAU or you had to go to Valkurm, get to 16 (hope you picked the right job!), get your subjob items before you can even unlock your subjob (and back in the day, good luck getting the Buburimu ones without a team dedicating themselves to it), go to Jeuno (the marketboard will need a sizable donation for those Prism Powders and Silent Oils), get the rep or spend more money on the marketboard (where did your level 16 ass get all this gil from anyway? Suspicious.), board a ship in Mhaura, which if you miss it you're waiting for 30 minutes for it to come back. Then waiting 15 minutes for it to make it into White Gate. All this to be able to stare at the pretty scenery, because if you're not level 30 you can't even start the new Job Quests.

So I guess you get to go back to Valkurm now and hope some folks are looking to make a levelling party. Because you've got a long way to go before you can even think of touching ToAU content.

Because now you've got to get to 18. Which if someone sees you at 18 without a subjob equipped you're now at a coin flip's chance at best of actually being invited to party. Go do your subjob quest.
Now level that subjob. Because if you don't now and people catch you with a gimped subjob you are not getting a party invite (unless you're playing WHM, then they're desperate enough to let it slide)
Now that you've hit 19-20ish time to go to Qufim for about 6-7 levels until all of a sudden your prospects of getting a party dry up since nobody does Delkfutt's Tower parties at this point in the game. They want you to go to Yuhtunga Jungle.
How do you get to Yuhtunga Jungle, you ask? That's right, you need the Kazham Airship pass... what was the requirement for that again?

Oh right... 3 beastmen area chest keys. Which I recall are non-tradeable and unique. So you're going to need to go farm those up. Do you have a thief levelled by chance? Do you know one?
No? And you thought FFXIV's MSQ was tedious.

Seems like the gates are starting to pile up here.

So now you go level for 3 levels in Yuhtunga before finally being able to go do Expert Job quests (yay!)

Hopefully by the time you get to level 30 to touch on the new job quests you don't come to regret you're not actually 60 because everything is tuned in that expansion starting from there (Merits were introduced at this point so they could focus on content tuned to level-75), and then when you do finally get to the point where you're high enough level to actually put a dent in the content it's no longer the relevant content. So good luck finding 5 other people on your server willing to help you out. And unlike FFXIV, XI gave 0 incentive for an older player to help you. There was no relic to send them back, there was no first timer rewards, there was nothing. So you had to convince them that you were worth their time.

Mind you, I accomplished this. Plenty of people wanted me around during that time. But if you're complaining about the MSQ gating in XIV? You probably wouldn't have.

[Ditto]

The gate is good, less of the new classes until people have earned it. Just throwing 15$ at SE doesn't earn you everything immediately.

[Xairos]

I just want to add that as a player who finished the level 30-50 Dark Knight job quests, they pull heavily from what you as a player did throughout all of your 2.0 storyline. To subvert that story is to undermine the whole Job Quests themselves. I cannot speak on Astro and Machinist, but I can imagine that if I were to just jump into the Dark Knight story quests with no previous context of 2.0 storyline then I would be incredibly lost.

As for the job itself and being able to access it, I am afraid that I have to side with how it has been done. Heavensward feels like a proper sequel to 2.0. Which is what I believe the intent was all along. I dont think anyone who would jump in half way in a series (Like watching the Two Towers with no knowledge of The Fellowship of the Ring) would be able to grasp what is going on. I feel that there is a lot of sentiment floating around where people just want to join in with the Internet Hype of this game and play with the new shiny (as seen by their favorite person on Twitch).

I recently tried to get an MMO-loving friend of mine to play this title and to move from his Beta-to-present history in WoW. He played Archer to level 35 and just could not grasp the fact that he was to primarily level through dungeons and Leves and Hunting Log and not just through random questing (ala WoW). So he wound up going back to WoW. My take: he would never really enjoy this game if he didn't find motivation in himself to ACTUALLY play the game as a game and not as "Just another MMO". No amount of "Hey look at this new cool thing" could sway him if he doesn't understand how to, on a basic level, interact with the game itself. He will just give up later on down the road.

But you know what, I am perfectly ok with his choice and we still talk about MMOs.