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

[Luvbunny]

Look, the EXTRA jobs are accessible with one of you have to be reaching level 50. So even if all the guilds to start are placed outside Ishgard, thus making it "accessible" for those who do not have the access to city, it is still NOT ACCESSIBLE to new players who just play the game. It would probably only help those players who finished MSQ (even if SE decided to let everyone only finish MSQ 2.0 vanilla to access new jobs, but still lock Ishgard under 2.55 completion). They are EXTRA jobs, a reward for those who have completed the original MSQ. Maybe in expansion 3 or 4, they will simplify "season 1-2", but for now, it is what it is. And yes, I understand it is their "Easy Way Out" to pad over 50 hours of content to new players. And a good 10-15 hours of content for returning player.

[Luvbunny]

At the very least all the players that did do their research and read that HW had a large MSQ grind to catch up and decided to pass on the expansion, if instead some aspects were accessible to them a bit quicker, they might of spent $40+ on the game. Thats a lot of money Square Enix left on the table. Thats a lot of money they can push toward advertisements, new hardware, few more devs, paying the current devs salaries so they don't have to cut staff (which makes content come out faster), etc.

If you hate a game that has a lot of MSQ and quest based type activity, this game is not for you, Heavensward is not for you. It is more of the same, bigger and longer and full of "hide and seek". Why would I be crazy enough to buy an expansion that has a lot of activities that I do not want to go through, aka press ESC buttons skip CS. Since 3.0 theme is "gating access and quests behind MSQ progression". Even if SE let everyone skip MSQ 2.1-2.55, these SAME players will flood the forum complaining that 3.0 is to restrictive and now they have to do MSQ to get to the next areas in 3.0 (let's not even talk about how they "gate flying access in 3.0") ....

[Vicus]

I never said that i didn't want more people to play the game and that it had to be a wow clone either. I was just acknowledging the fact that the numbers weren't the same. Also if some one could answer this because I honestly don't follow wow... how many active subs were there in the first year to two years of its release?

I didnt know the answer but I googled it

http://www.powerwordgold.net/2013/07...2005-2013.html

It appears by the end of its second year WoW had approx 8 mil subs.

Also Rannie didn't mean to imply that you said any of those things, my comments were generalized as in "Why not shoot for more profit and numbers" only to clarify what I meant by bad business. McDonalds is the top fast food company out there but over the last few years they have been making a lot of bad business choices that has hampered profits. Just want to see FFXIV continue to grow at the rate it can.

I mean can you imagine how well this game would be doing if Square Enix was at the height of its popularity like it was during the FF7-10 release period? I dont mean releasing the game back then but having the MMO player base that is out there now and their former popularity..would be massive. I think with FF15 upcoming and the announcement of a FF7 re-make (a legit one..yay), that Square Enix has the opportunity to become the top dog on the market, even beating WoW but they have to find a balance of allowing new players the ability to feel apart of this game while not upsetting the original goals they set out for it. I don't again mean making it into WoW, its obvious that millions of players prefer this type of story driven gameplay but the goal is to get the casual crew like a lot of wow players to also buy into the story driven gameplay. Dunno that's just the business man in me coming out I guess.

[Vicus]

If you hate a game that has a lot of MSQ and quest based type activity, this game is not for you, Heavensward is not for you. It is more of the same, bigger and longer and full of "hide and seek". Why would I be crazy enough to buy an expansion that has a lot of activities that I do not want to go through, aka press ESC buttons skip CS. Since 3.0 theme is "gating access and quests behind MSQ progression". Even if SE let everyone skip MSQ 2.1-2.55, these SAME players will flood the forum complaining that 3.0 is to restrictive and now they have to do MSQ to get to the next areas in 3.0 (let's not even talk about how they "gate flying access in 3.0") ....

I dont think anyone "hates" this game. I think people look at how far they are behind and decide to not give it a shot before even trying it. The leveling process is not that bad, the story quest gives you a ton of gear on the way up *i110 gear* and the fetch quest can be pushed thru. But people don't see that, they research and see all the threads about "before you buy HW beware the gate process". The fact that people had to make threads like that in the first place means Square Enix made a design flaw ..or they don't care about money. I highly doubt they don't care about money. I also think the design flaw is easy to fix that doesnt have any downside.

[Luvbunny]

When 2.0 first was launched, they did not expect the game to become such a massive success. They were expecting maybe 200-300k subscriber at most, judging from the wretched response from 1.0. The success created a short time problem at launch when for almost a month, people are experiencing logging in problem with numerous issues - they gave everyone one week free to make up for this. Maybe they are doing what they do now to stagger the flood of people to 3.0 main areas. I am sure they know how many of their subs finished with 2.55 and how many still have a good chunk to go through. FF14 does not need to have 12 millions subs, even at 2-3 millions, it is still considered a success. Let's just play Heavenward as it is originally intended by the creator, enjoy it, savor it, and make it last as long as possible and not just get to level 60 in 2 days.

Also this is their first expansion, you could at least give them the benefits of the doubts and first timer "get out of jail cards" (yes they should have learn A LOT from FFXI). I am sure they will take a lot of these feedback and make 4.0 much more accessible for everyone. I rather play 3.0 NOW in June 2015 than having to wait 3-4 more months while they are adjusting "2.1-2.55 MSQ and triming the fat". Bite the bullet, do the MSQ, it's worth it, 15 hours MSQ is nothing, you could be done in 3 days playing quite casual.

[Rannie]

Lol McDonald's sorry I laugh at that company not for what you were saying but the company in general.

I get what you're saying. I really do. And I can understand it from the business sense as well, though I wouldn't say it was bad business completely but that's my opinion as well. The thing is if they do that stuff people could still just come play it until they are bored then say f this I'm gone just because they did everything they could beat end game god only knows how many times and se goes on the same track of bringing out another expansion in another year and a half to two years and then the cycle just replays itself. You can't guarantee that the numbers would skyrocket. Unfortunately, business like that is just a speculation (don't get me wrong I won't knock speculation).

There's also the fact that they want to keep all their current subs to. We all know how people can get. The whole knee jerk rage quit reaction when things don't go their way. (Gotta love that). So they are teetering to balance things out as best as they can to make the players happy while keeping their vision of the game in mind.

BTW I want that remake of ffvii so bad lol

Also thanks for that link I appreciate it

[Raist]

snip.

A very important point you seem to be glossing over is that one of the core requirements pretty much bound you to having completed the original main story of FFXI, or at least be most the way to it. IT really isn't that different from what is being done here with FFXIV's FIRST official expansion.

As mentioned earlier, it was out for quite a while in Japan before it hit the world stage en masse, and most people got it with ZM bundled with it.

[Eidolon]

A very important point you seem to be glossing over is that one of the core requirements pretty much bound you to having completed the original main story of FFXI, or at least be most the way to it. IT really isn't that different from what is being done here with FFXIV's FIRST official expansion.
t.

Wut?

No, it wasn't required to beat Shadow Lord to access the new jobs.
No, it wasn't required to complete most the main-story to access Kazham. Matter of fact, I'm pretty sure the point where you get a free Airship Pass (Rank 5?), had no baring whatsoever on you getting access to Kazham, which was a seperate quest entirely.

All of the content, you had access to, if you were of a level that was appropriate. A level 30 could unlock -all- the new jobs. Just as it should have been here (assuming class pre-reqs are met.)

[XxSliphxX]

they research and see all the threads about "before you buy HW beware the gate process". The fact that people had to make threads like that in the first place means Square Enix made a design flaw

People really need to read this and just let that sink in for a minute. When other gamers literally have to warn you NOT to buy your game...there just might be an issue. Call me crazy.

[Dhex]

Why would you buy a game to not play it?