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

[Reinha]

And yes, the story quest would STILL be there, and it would still grant exp and money, rewarding those who opted to do it but not punishing those who didn't want to. . . . So that leaves us with the following question: if FFXIV's story is entirely optional, what's the downside?

2) Story. Fun on it's own but now it's more fun because I get access to new dungeons while doing it! "Dungeon unlocked - The Aery now accessible" just popped today and I felt like I achieved something. The feeling of achievement and a good story can be combined for extra fun just as it has been in this game so far.

I'm getting tired of repeating myself. Right now the story rewards us with money, exp, gear, travel methods, cosmetic stuff and access to dungeons, sidequests, classes and areas. If you give some of those as freebies, then they are no longer rewards for doing the story. -> Story is less rewarding. -> Doing the story is less fun for me because I don't achieve anything significant while doing it. And no, some exp and gold isn't a significant reward when even brainless fates give you company seals on top of that. I want the journey to matter and not just be a means to an end.

SE could easily use a different quest symbol for quests that you can take but haven't done the story for yet (and there could certainly be an option to turn off quests you weren't ready for, story-wise).

Now this is something I could support. As long as there's an option for story gated gameplay I'm ok with it.

I did not personally attack you. I attacked the point you made. If you can't see the difference between the two, then I don't think this is worth my time.

You're literally taking pleasure in their misfortune. So, okay. There's one answer to how it negatively affects you, I guess: less sadism.

You said I take pleasure in others' misfortune when I never even spoke of others in my post let alone wished anyone harm. How on earth is implying I'm a sadist not a personal attack? Please elaborate what else you were trying to accomplish with your comment other than a half arsed attempt to make me (or someone who shares my opinion) look like a bad person, because I honestly see no logical connection between my post and your reply.

There's a difference between building yourself up (achieving something) and tearing someone else down (being happy because they can't achieve it).

Seeing as you understand the difference, why did you try to make it seem like they are the same in your comment about sadism? I only spoke of my personal sense of achievement and never once said it brings me joy to see others struggle with the MSQ, yet you decided to imply I take pleasure in others' misfortune. That's an ad hominem: responding to arguments by attacking a person's character, rather than to the content of their arguments. Please don't resort to fallacies because it makes a complete mockery of your cause and wastes the time of everyone involved.

Let's assume that SE makes the storyline optional. People can skip it, or save it for later, or whatever, and delve into whatever content they choose, whenever they choose to. Who, exactly, are we losing as a result of this? People who like the story, still have the story.

SE would've lost me months ago when I first started if they didn't push me to try the story. Whether I would quit in the future is not relevant when discussing new players' impressions, just like it's not relevant that you are still here despite the story not being optional. So I'll tell you my first impression as a new player. I have never liked questing before trying FFXIV, because it was unrewarding and the story sucked in WoW. The only questline I truly enjoyed there was the legendary quest in MoP, which set you on a 2-year mission that had both solo and group elements.

Someone asked me to try FFXIV. First quests were typical RPG chatter quests, but then I unlocked Aetherytes, guildhests and the first dungeons and their cutscenes. Whoa! Fast forward and I get a mount that I can name and move faster with. I began to be as excited as I was with the legendary quest in WoW. If the main quest was optional I would have wrongly assumed it was not worthwhile based on my experience with quests in WoW and judged the game solely by it's combat and community (dungeons and raids are the same thing with a different skin). The GCD is too long and I have constant lag and bad fps compared to WoW, and the first player contact I encountered was Sell'gil whispers and mass fc invites. I probably would've quit ages ago if it wasn't for the story drawing me in.

The story can offset quite a lot of annoyances (like lag, slow combat, RMT) if the game introduces it to the player early enough via the mandatory MSQ. So, after I've given myself as a contrary example, can you prove that the MSQ makes more new people quit than it persuades to stay? Your side is the one that made the claim about an optional story being good for business, so the burden of proof is on you.

Show me the number of people who will quit if the story was made optional.

And you. And everyone else who thinks a completely optional story in this game would be good for business. Go ahead and prove it, with more than just anecdotal evidence. Until then, I'm going to leave this thread, because you people are just repeating the same things over and over, flinging ad hominem at the opposing side, and claiming others are objectively wrong (brilliant! haha) whilst trying to shift the burden of proof onto people who like the current situation. It's a waste of time to try and have a proper two sided discussion in this thread.

[RichardButte]

I'm getting tired of repeating myself. Right now the story rewards us with money, exp, gear, travel methods, cosmetic stuff and access to dungeons, sidequests, classes and areas. If you give some of those as freebies, then they are no longer rewards for doing the story. -> Story is less rewarding. ->

No one suggested rewarding people for NOT doing the story. Where the hell did you get that idea?

2) Story. Fun on it's own but now it's more fun because I get access to new dungeons while doing it!

Yes, keyword: I (aka YOU).

This is the issue I have with the entire counter argument: it all boils down to varying degrees of "I like the story, therefore everyone should HAVE to do it!"

And everyone else who thinks a completely optional story in this game would be good for business. Go ahead and prove it, with more than just anecdotal evidence.

Do the thirty or so posts from people who have tried and failed to get their friends into this game not count? And if you're going to call them "anecdotes", then remember that the opinions of the people against making the story option are just as anecdotal (and outnumbered).

And besides, WE asked first: prove that making the story optional will somehow hurt the game.

I KNOW it would be good for the game because I have at least two friends who have quit because they just don't enjoy FFXIV's story and couldn't put up with the hours of tedium necessary to get to endgame where the FUN is.

Even when we've DEMANDED that you people explain how making the story optional will hurt the game, EVERY SINGLE TIME, the reply is something along the lines of "The story is fun, therefore everyone should have to do it!"

Do you not UNDERSTAND that what you like, others may not? Do you not grasp the concept that more people playing FFXIV is better for YOU because it increases Yoshi-P's development budget?

Do you not understand that making the story option won't have even the tiniest bit of an effect on YOUR gameplay experience?!

A person liking something is not grounds for them to force other people to do it...

[Luvbunny]

LMAO - you will actually finish MSQ for three characters alts if you just do them instead of complaining in this forum. I actually did, all my three characters are in Ishgard now. If you just FOCUS on MSQ, you will not believe how FAST things are progressing, skip CS button is a wonderful thing. Skip them all, get the xp reward, move along. MSQ gives reasons and rewards to explore the game. If I am going to "open the map" anyway, might as well give me something to do during that journey, and maybe a level or three.

As Reinha has already stated, SE did great with the MSQ, this game is very curated, extremely focused and put you on a rail. This is NOT Skyrim, Elderscroll Online or World of Warcraft where it is more open ended explore everything as you see fit and "make your own storyline + write your own back story". This is FINAL FANTASY flagship number fourteen, it will adhere to every single FF game in the series, yes as well as the cheesy aspect of JRPG.

[Tuathaa]

I watched the abridged version.

I get people got issues with the MSQ and being gated by it. But leveling from 1- 50 it is way faster than doing anything else in the game From my experience and that's an experience leveling up 8 characters, fetch and travel quests literally take a few minutes to get done and you don't need to be paying 100% attention.

The op and myself as well as some others do not support the idea of removing the msq.
What we are saying is remove the filler and non essential quests from the msq.
I for one loved the story but quickly quit caring about it because of all the unrelated bs.
As for making it optional I am all for it mainly because I know it will increase the player base and not impact me one bit. I will still do the msq. I am kind of ocd when it comes to things like that.

[RichardButte]

Iskip CS button is a wonderful thing

So, you acknowledge that the story has many pointless quests that should just be removed, yet you insist that people should have to sit there mashing esc to skip them instead...



And FYI, it's still ~10 hours EVEN if you're skipping it.

[Xairos]

So, you acknowledge that the story has many pointless quests that should just be removed, yet you insist that people should have to sit there mashing esc to skip them instead...



And FYI, it's still ~10 hours EVEN if you're skipping it.

He's saying that it does hurt to skip it not that it's pointless. The story is the focus here in this game because an attempt at a different, story focused mmo was made. So here we are. We can't gut it now.

[Xairos]

Doesn\\'T stupid phone and N mobile site edit function

[RichardButte]

He's saying that it does hurt to skip it not that it's pointless. The story is the focus here in this game because an attempt at a different, story focused mmo was made. So here we are. We can't gut it now.

Except that 90% of the "story" in the MSQ L50 is actually pointless filler that was added to pad the time played and has nothing to do with the story itself.

And the real irony here is that this insane amount of filler makes people LESS likely to experience the story because of how much MORE likely it makes them to just start mashing ESC.

Hence why I think it needs to be abridged: people may actually watch it then AND would be more likely to see the MSQ through to the end of 2.55...

[KisaiTenshi]

What I start to find annoying is how's everyone's defense for the story is that "it's Final Fantasy" and that is has to have a story in order to be good... and I would agree on that if this game wasn't once shut down because of 1.0 failure due to its faulty gameplay and overall bad game design.

As far as my friends told me, 1.0 story was much better than 2.0, yet the game failed.

1.0's story was hidden behind an aimless mostly-open world, just like 2.0, but the number of locations you could reach without getting killed right away was pretty low. I know so, that was the very first thing I did in 1.0 and the very first thing I did in 2.0. Unlock all the Aetheryte's. Here's the thing, V1.0 had a story, but it wasn't the story that killed it, it was the gameplay. It tried to be FFXI (from what I hear), but even to people who may have enjoyed the menu-driven turn-based play like a console didn't like doing that. There was also the entire copy-paste scenery thing that really gave the game a low-rating from all the reviewers. It just was not fun to play. Some people slogged through it to finish the storyline and then quit, others just held onto it because it was better than playing WoW or something else.

The thing is, though, at no point has anyone implied that we don't care for the story. All that has been stated is that there are potential customers who don't care for the story, or who would like the option of pursuing it at their own pace rather than doing it all up front.

The storyline for FFXIV is a big draw, and the bulk of its customers appreciate it. SE knows this. There's a substantial untapped customer base, though, for which the storyline is less important, and this playerbase CAN be tapped without sacrificing any of the quality we've come to expect.

Asking for choice is not the same as rejecting what we have.

If you've read the entire thread (it grows like 5 pages every day) you'd notice that the OP was RichardButte, who I've quoted below.

I have three friends who I've tried to introduce to XIV. Out of those three, only one really remains and even he was grappling with making it through all of the 50 storyline last night (I went to bed before he finished, not sure where he left off).

His concern being that his friends are not enjoying the game... and he wasn't helping them.

Another poster in this thread took it as an opportunity to change the tone from "reduce some of the fluff" to "nerf the damn story" from this guy:

SE almost lost my subscription, and for what? The only answer at this point is arrogance. The arrogance that your story is amazing and that everyone needs to see it. This can also be seen with the current terribleness of FATE experience rewards. "We can't have people grinding FATEs, they've got to see this story!"

I do not like Final Fantasy. I'm sorry, but I do not. I like MMOs. I do not like Warcraft, Warhammer, or whatever story RIFT had. I do like Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and I'm a middle-of-the-road Elder Scrolls fan. I've played all of these games for the game. It's nice when I like the story, but it shouldn't be a requirement.

Thus the thread's tone changed from removing some of the fluff quests, which more people were okay with, to Atrayl just straight up hating the game, but for some reason is still playing it.

1. There have been an astonishing number of posts in this thread by people who have outright been UNABLE to convince their friends to play this game (or continue playing it) because of the sheer amount of story content (I say astonishing because I had no idea this issue was so widespread). No idea where you're getting "two people" from...

Two or three people, not dozens. Most of the posts in this thread are by the same 5 people over and over.

I'll agree that maybe some of the MSQ storyline before level 15 should have been less obnoxious by condensing the "go talk to X" quests into just longer cutscenes. The reason they do it this way is because of attention span. Having any unvoiced cutscene longer than about 3 minutes is too long. All these quests were near the starting city, and probably should have been something that could be queued up like a shopping list. On the flip side, everything after level 15 constantly has you going from zone to zone, and once you've unlocked those zones you can just teleport if you have the money, or use the Chocobo porters. There is no way they could condense these quests without fundamentally changing the storyline in ways that would not send the players to the zones with the quests for that level. That is the purpose of the the storyline. They send you to X, where there will also be 2-3 waiting optional side quests with their own story chain for that level. You aren't required to do them (well with HW you are required to do the chains that gives you the aethercurrent unlocks, but that's not all of them.) Some of these optional quests you can only do after you've unlocked the Aethercurrents because there is no way to reach some of the locations the quest sends you.

I'm less fond of "hide-and-seek" quests, which HW seems to have embraced. But i'm still going to do them even if I'm rolling my eyes at how the Moogles and Dragons are both transparently manipulative races. I'm however glad there are no bloody escort missions.

To wit, I'll sympathize with the player who wants to level another character on the same account on the same server, provided it is "their" character and not someone other than themselves. But someone who really wants to play two characters, would do the work for it, regardless. People who are complaining that they can't get their friends into this game, that means your friends don't want to play it. Have you ever been asked to play something you really-didn't-want-to-play before?

I'll tell you the spoiler.... they don't want to play it unless it with you. You can not leave them to do the storyline by themselves while you go gallivanting in places they can't reach. To believe they will do so is extremely arrogant, and is the kind that ruins friendships. If you want to play with them, you need to agree on a game to play, not decide for them.

I had friends who wanted to play Wizardy, Aion and Archeage... Initially we had like 6 people in Wizardy, which became 3 people in Aion, and them it became myself in Archeage because I managed to get into the Beta and my friend didn't. By the time the Beta ended, she didn't want to play and I was only playing it with the intention of playing with her, so I quit. I had made up my mind before playing Archeage that if I wasn't going to play with my friends I was going to give FFXIV another go after New Years. The complaints among the friends in Wizardry are a lot like the complaints here, that the game seemed to be a pointless gear grind and was no fun to play with anyone who spent more time in the game. These are the same kinds of complaints WoW gets as well. I've never played WoW, and everything I know about it comes from people complaining about WoW in other games.

In which people say "If you love WoW so much, why aren't you playing it?" , even here.

Watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRtLDQVHIEc , "Guild Grumps", and take note of why the friends all quit by the third episode. It has nothing to do with the story.

The fact is, dragging 3 people who don't want to play into a game they don't want to play and then not even helping them is going to make them quit. It didn't help at all that they skipped the story. Not showing them the fun parts... also going to make them quit.

Show your friends the fun parts at the beginning instead of leaving them to their own devices. It is NOT fun to do all this stuff by yourself, when it your friend wants you to play.

[RichardButte]

His concern being that his friends are not enjoying the game... and he wasn't helping them.

The F**K I wasn't...

I've been doing EVERYTHING I can to help them: I run every dungeon with them they need as a healer or tank, I craft them new gear (even without them asking for it), I give them money, give them cool pets, carry them around on my 2 seater, etc.

I've done EVERYTHING I can to try to keep them in game. The thing I CAN'T do is save them from the monotony of the story, which is ultimately what has made two of them quit the game.

How did you infer that I wasn't helping my friends? Where did I say, "Sure, I'm letting them do all this crap alone, but I have no idea why they keep giving up and quitting the game..."?

Another poster in this thread took it as an opportunity to change the tone from "reduce some of the fluff" to "nerf the damn story" from this guy

Making the story non-mandatory ≠ nerfing it.

Thus the thread's tone changed from removing some of the fluff quests, which more people were okay with, to Atrayl just straight up hating the game, but for some reason is still playing it.

Sane Person's Line of Reasoning:

"He doesn't enjoy the story yet he still plays the game? There must be something else about the game that he enjoys, then."

Your Line of Reasoning:

"He doesn't enjoy the story yet he still plays the game? HE MUST HATE FINAL FANTASY!!!"

Two or three people, not dozens. Most of the posts in this thread are by the same 5 people over and over.

1. The OP has 63 likes as of my posting this. That's 63 people who agree that the MSQ is too long and needs to be pared down.

2. There have been far more than 5 people who have posted about their friends who have tried XIV but not continued with it because of how long and boring the MSQ was for them. It is LITERALLY driving people away from the game.

Show your friends the fun parts at the beginning instead of leaving them to their own devices. It is NOT fun to do all this stuff by yourself, when it was your friend who wants you to play.

And ironically, it's the MSQ that forces my friends to stuff alone where I cannot help them...