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

[Vicus]

So just an update.

First,

For everyone who has contributed to this thread thank you, for those who just personally attacked everyone that you didn't agree with well...I'm probably going to give you more fuel to rage.
Second,
I am currently halfway through the "Dreams of Ice" story line working my way to HW. When I made my original post I never stated I was a casual player. I never stated I didn't love and want FF lore into the game. I also never stated I quit the game because I did not like it or because the game was to hard. I stated the opposite MULTIPLE times but the people who flamed just skipped ahead to rage and hit submit. I am a hardcore raider, always have and always will be. I have played FF in era on systems dating back to the NES days. I will and am going to play this game with the intent of being in a top end guild pushing content once I catch up.

With that said, I still think this game has a bad business model and has some serious issues that people have addressed but many (if not TO many) people are blindly praising as good things just becuase Yoshi is the director and because "It's FF and thats the way it should be".

The story (MSQ) has epic moments that are vital to the game and should not be missed, but this is only 15% of the MSQ. The majority of it is just insane fetching. So much so that if this was any other MMO people would have burned down the servers by now. I've enjoyed it, I will say that doing the "hard mode" Primals with the introduction of wipes = increased damage buff up to 40% changes my mind a bit. I believe with this type of system that its not something that should be avioded while doing the story, it should be left in. But once again the amount of fetching in the MSQ has to be fixed. Each main story block is 10 minutes of oooo and WOOOOW followed by 2-4 hours of running around doing stuff like ...going to get a mining axe because it failed to be delivered ontime.

The way you earn experience from 1-50 is way different from how you earn experience from 51-60. Not only do you make people push out hours of content that givers barely any experience just to get to HW, once they are there you make the fates, questing, and story quest STILL not enough to level all the way through a level. You have to do dungeons and dailies to fill the gaps of experience. YOU KNOW something is wrong when everyone is going back to dragon head and doing old fates because they give more base experience then the current fates. They are always faster and more populated to kill.

Third,
They changed a large chunk of the classes and how they play from 1-50 compared to 52-60. Stressing lore and story as being one of the reasons why new classes aren't allowed but forcing someone to play a class that once at 52 changes drastically from how it was in AAR makes no sense.

This has affected me the most because being a bard its like playing a different game now. Adding cast times to all abilities is just a bad idea. To top this off, Mach is the sameway. I can tell you right now that playing Machinist to 52 one way then adding cast times to everything doesnt HELP the player as much as hurt them because everything they learned is going to build bad habits. Playing a bard one way and now the new day is just ...demotivating. If I played it with WM from say level 30 it would be a lot less shocking if that makes sense. Also making the lowest DPS class also take a penalty while playing songs to make them less dps...makes no sense.

Dragoon is drastically changed over the last three levels on how they use their rotation and play.

Summoners go from having to stack dots with cast times to having the majority of their spells become instant.

Blackmage changes a good amount in how they push out dps.

Having more options is great but how you play your character from 1-50 and how its played at 52-60 is like having a totally different class forced on you. You learn the game mechanics, dungeons, primal system, etc but after all that work you might find out you no longer like what you are playing.

Fourth,
Housing. Started to look into this because its an aspect of every MMO I love and because my wife (who plays ..is also not a casual player) finished the storyline ahead of me (has more time to play) and wanted to branch out now and complete all the quest and work on tradeskills. But once she went into the housing area she realized that getting a house is going to be next to impossible until they increase how many houses are available. This is pretty unacceptable this day and age of MMO's. Server limitations is not a valid excuse. Before you release content make sure it's allow to be obtained by everyone who PAYS for it. If this was gated, I would understand. Make someone do a quest to unlock it. Make it available to those only level 50 or whatever, but making it so that only a VERY small % of players can own one? Just poor implementation. To top it off they are making Airships something you need a house for...lol. That's going to go over well.

The above things I've listed are all aspects of the game that are going to hinder new players from wanting to play and stick around. If your only answer is "Thats fine ..we didn't want them to play anyways and go find a new game", then you my friend are someone who actually wants this game to fail because NO MMO is going to have longevity with a healthy population like that. Will the game shut down the servers? probably not. Will you be able to find groups whenever and however you want without having a core group of players already set in place, not likely.

Ill state this here but I'm sure it will get ignored. I once again love the game, love FF, and am very happy I am playing because I love the dungeon/primal style, the story, the atmosphere of the world, crafting, and how the game makes you feel like you are the warrior of light. But I am unbiased enough to realize that there are some really major flaws that are like a punch to the gut when you experience them for the first time.

Before it's said.. Im not leaving and I dont hate the game. Also this game is for me no matter how many times you say it's not.

[Raist]

... So much so that if this was any other MMO people would have burned down the servers by now ...

That is what really needs to be understood...that so many people don't seem to be grasping in these debates.

This ISN'T any other MMO. SE never intended it to be.

[Tuathaa]

That is what really needs to be understood...that so many people don't seem to be grasping in these debates.

This ISN'T any other MMO. SE never intended it to be.

And this isn't FFVII or FFXI either.

[Raist]

And this isn't FFVII or FFXI either.

But it IS part of the Final Fantasy franchise....which establishes Square's pattern for the gating (go back and look at their old Squaresoft games and such---these approaches are nothing new for them.

The point of all the XI examples cover multiple points of contention. People keep comparing this game to other games by different companies. XI is this this game's predecessor from the same company. XI was a BIG influence on this game (much of the assets are practically enhanced copy/pasta ffs), and this game is following the exact same trends (same company, same franchise, extremely similar mechanics in play--something that has remained consistent for nearly two decades now).

Anyone truly familiar with the company or at least the franchise should have expected this type of gating. Period. If it is their first introduction to their line of games, yes...it may be a bit off-putting. But it is a tradition of sorts---and pretty much anyone who has dealt with Asian culture should be well aware of how much effort will be put into guarding such traditions. They have their reasons for doing this...cry all you want, you likely aren't going to get it changed...at least not anytime soon. It was well over a decade in their last online IP in this franchise before they took down a lot of these barriers.

[Tuathaa]

But it IS part of the Final Fantasy franchise....which establishes Square's pattern for the gating (go back and look at their old Sqaresoft games and such---these approaches are nothing new for them.

The same argument can be made for any franchise not just FF. One of the benefits of creating a new game in a franchise is to correct the things you did wrong in the previous ones. As all the FFXI references have pointed out.

[Raist]

The same argument can be made for any franchise not just FF. One of the benefits of creating a new game in a franchise is to correct the things you did wrong in the previous ones. As all the FFXI references have pointed out.

umm... they are repeating the same approaches as they did in XI. Though, they may be tweaked a bit, but at their core....it is the same principles in play. That is why it keeps being brought up---it establishes the precedent for what they are doing now.

[LineageRazor]

Sure, they could change the job's story. Does anyone really want that? I sure don't. I quite like the existing job stories. I certainly don't want them to retroactively change the main story just to allow people to unlock the new jobs as soon as possible.

I doubt there are many here who actually believe there's any chance that SE will "retroactively change" ANYTHING here, job access or otherwise. What we have is what we have, and it's not going to change - if not never, at least not for a good, long while.

I believe the main point of this thread is to discuss:

"Has SE made a mistake by gating jobs behind so much content?"
"If so, will they realize that it was a mistake and take proper measure in the future when adding similar content?"

If this game is making a profit for SE, what makes it's current form bad for business?

Anyone who doubts SE is making money hand-over-fist is a fool. The question isn't "Is SE making money?" it is, "Could SE be making MORE money?" We all know that SE has plenty of room to invest more money in this game. They are FREQUENTLY responding to player requests on these forums with excuses like server limitations and whatnot - problems that can be solved with more money.

umm... they are repeating the same approaches as they did in XI. Though, they may be tweaked a bit, but at their core....it is the same principles in play. That is why it keeps being brought up---it establishes the precedent for what they are doing now.

The problem is, FFXI does NOT set a precedent for how things are in FFXIV. Yes, things were gated in FFXI - but EVERY expansion provided a ton of content that was NOT gated, or gated extremely minimally (like the airship ticket to Khazam, or the quest to access Aht Urhgan). This was especially true for jobs added with an expansion level 30 was the magic number to access any job in any expansion.

The one time that SE gated any content behind the base set Main Scenario was for Rise of the Zilart - and even there, the new jobs were not gated by Main Scenario. Additionally, in terms of the effort to do things in FFXI (and in FFXI, EVERYTHING required a TON more effort than in FFXIV, and a full party of six was the expectation when it came to doing anything corresponding to your current level), completing up to defeat of the Shadowlord was proportionally equivalent to the effort it takes in this game to beat Ifrit the first time. Main Scenario in FFXI was a cakewalk compared to the other things in that game, and for most things it was completely optional.

Someone mentioned Abyssea "making no sense" if you never finished Chains of Promathia. That may or may not be true (someone who didn't do CoP would get to the end of Abyssea and learn that they attempted something awesome in another dimension and failed - that's easy enough to grasp), but regardless of whether it was or not, completion of CoP was NOT required to access Abyssea.