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

[Donarudo]

People are met with a wall of flame when they make threads demanding to be allowed into Heavensward without beating the ARR story and with no clue what's going on.

Cutting out the pointless fetch quests but keeping all the cutscenes and important quests is something almost everyone wants to see. But it would be very easy for S-E to mess up - I know I would be severely put off if I was a new player and heard that parts of the story were cut before I could start playing. They would have to be very careful. It's bound to be happen eventually though - if this game gets several more expansions it would be insane to demand a new player to play through several hundred hours of story to get current.

Warping you to each quest NPC as long as you've been at the location before would be a brilliant stopgap solution though.

Speak for yourself...beleive it or not there is a lot of people who like the questing aspect and fetch quest.

[Belhi]

I personally suspect that striping down the MSQ to make it less would simply turn complaints from new player to levelling up to 50 being too much of a grind. Having levelled all the classes to 50, by far the first one when I had the MSQ to give me exp was the least grindy.

While Id hardly argue that the ARR story experience is a perfect gameplay experience SE, like all MMO developers, face the situation where keeping old areas and content relevant is a challenge. Most players, new and old, seem to focus entirely on the new stuff which can often be a shame since rushing or skipping through earlier content can lead to missing out on what is enjoyable game experience in its own right.

Short of reworking the entire 2.x story to streamline and improve the questing experience, which would take a huge amount of resources to do, I'm not sure exactly what they can do without potentially compromising the narrative side of the experience. Its worth noting by the way that a lot of those menial MS quests do have a role in Worldbuilding and setting up clues to future events or introducing elements. Using the Pre Titan quests as an example, they allowed SE to introduce Seeker of the Sun culture to the world. A menial quest in Revenant's Toll in the Defender's of Eorzea patch where you hand out uniforms, introduced a number of notable characters in the Crystal Braves plot thread. Just removing those quests would undermine valuable narrative points.

That's not to say they should do nothing. Its just I don't think its a simple fix.

[Tuathaa]

This in bold is incorrect. This will hurt the game for all of the players who care about the story, to just be able to walk into an isolated nation like Ishgard with no explanation behind it. To just go right into dungeons without even a reason as to why.

You mean the same people that are frantically mashing the scape key to skip cut scenes and madly clicking through dialog?

[Xuealin]

I ran through all the MSQ, there are fetch quest but at the same time they are part of the story telling that reveals pieces of lore. No they may not be about the current story but they give depth to the current story by giving you a backdrop. I don't care if people play for story or don't but whoever says they don't buy MSQ being important because this is a FF should just keep quiet. Square and the FF franchise has always been story-driven and shouldn't change.

[Seiryuukishi]

I feel your pain OP. I have wanted to get a couple of my family members on here. But there are some things that need to be addressed before abridging can take place.

First voice abridging cost money. Not just in hiring the actor but getting the script abridged which of course takes away from development time. Then there is recording time, and reworking 2.0. This of course will lead to a cut into dev time all culminating into a patch which means down time for the game.

Now I am not saying the idea in and of itself is "bad", another poster stated introducing an item which would allow insta-porting to the npc that is next up in the quest line. It would of course have to be an infinite use up to opening of 3.0's content. However, the extent to which this will help will be minimal. You would still need to kill mobs, collect this or that, and whatever else is required to progress.

I cannot recommend any solution to the issue as, by and large, barring a near entire reworking of 2.0's story and/or systems it seems to me that next to nothing would be beneficial. While it sucks, I agree, to have to wade through the mire that is 2.0's main story it cannot be "easily" fixed. For those that are new or returning earlier in 2.0's story lifespan, I see no option that would make this more tolerable within the confines of what the devs can reasonably do whilst still keeping on developing newer content for what we currently have.

[QiLymePye]

I think the people that are complaining that new players should have to go through the same that they did and that story is important need to get off of their high horse. The new players paid for the expansion, they should be able to access at least the areas and jobs that the expansion has. Yes, keep the story from Heavensward from them, fine. But to tell the new players that they have to go through hundreds of MSQ just to get to Heavensward, then unlock Lvl 30 new jobs just to go right back to lvling using those same low lvl dungeons that they just finished is wrong.

And stop saying the story will be ruined. Cutting out "unimportant" filler quest that have nothing to do with story would definitely help. And stop telling the new players that they shouldn't be able to access it cause they didn't put in the work. Thats like you going to buy, lets say, mass effect 3 and you never played the first two, and not being able to play the game until you complete ME 1 and 2. Its stupid. And my final question, if x player decided to skip story to get to Heavensward...how does that affect YOUR game? Answer...it doesn't. You can experience the same story.

I had stopped playing about a few months ago, when I came back, I had to play through about 60-70 quest just to access it. Talk about boring. How in the world does watching Tataru fish for clams do anything to the story? Would it hurt to omit that from line of quest? I think not.

[Tuathaa]

I think the people that are complaining that new players should have to go through the same that they did and that story is important need to get off of their high horse. The new players paid for the expansion, they should be able to access at least the areas and jobs that the expansion has. Yes, keep the story from Heavensward from them, fine. But to tell the new players that they have to go through hundreds of MSQ just to get to Heavensward, then unlock Lvl 30 new jobs just to go right back to lvling using those same low lvl dungeons that they just finished is wrong.

They say its important but I would venture to say that 50% of the player base has skipped through the story and has no idea whats going on anyhow. Either by peer pressure or boredom with the long quest chains and wanting it to end.

[Zabuza]

And stop saying the story will be ruined. Cutting out "unimportant" filler quest that have nothing to do with story would definitely help. And stop telling the new players that they shouldn't be able to access it cause they didn't put in the work. Thats like you going to buy, lets say, mass effect 3 and you never played the first two, and not being able to play the game until you complete ME 1 and 2. Its stupid. And my final question, if x player decided to skip story to get to Heavensward...how does that affect YOUR game? Answer...it doesn't. You can experience the same story.

No, your analogy is incorrect. Heavensward is an expansion - a DLC, albeit a rather large one. It is not a completely new game. The Heavensward story builds off of the ARR story. A better analogy would be asking to start at the beginning of disc 2 in FF7 without having played the first disc. You'd have no idea wtf is going on and you shouldn't be allowed to skip a disc. Certainly they need to get rid of filler quests, but allowing you to skip the entire MSQ... just no.

You mean the same people that are frantically mashing the scape key to skip cut scenes and madly clicking through dialog?

So I'm curious, do you also believe it's unfair that the very best gear is gated behind difficult boss fights? Since some people want the best gear without having to go through that struggle, why don't we just give it to them without forcing them to do anything difficult? After all, this is cutting off their choice, right? Do you also believes the levels to be useless? Perhaps we should all start at level 60 as well? Sounds like you want to turn this into a certain other MMO, which it is not.

It's sad to see how brainwashed people have become from a certain other MMO. It has taught them to believe gating things behind raids or meaningless rep grinds or token grinds is ok, but apparently gating things behind a meaningful story that actually makes sense IN THE GAME WORLD is not ok. Gotta love it. If any MMO deviates from this formula, they are wrong and how dare they force people to do this content. And you all wonder why there have been no MMOs with any innovation since the juggernaut of MMOs came out 10 years ago? You guys are why. You clamor for it but you can't even take the slightest change to the formula without whining.

[ThanMazus]

certain other MMO

I think people on this forum just wouldn't be able to post if they had to not strawman or insult each other or other games.

I know the last time *I* logged into "certain other MMO", I was greeted by instant max level best possible gear without doing ANYTHING, like you're suggesting happens.

[Zabuza]

I think people on this forum just wouldn't be able to post if they had to not strawman or insult each other or other games.

I know the last time *I* logged into "certain other MMO", I was greeted by instant max level best possible gear without doing ANYTHING, like you're suggesting happens.

I don't wish to talk to about that game too much, but it really is the reason that people are expecting this, so it's unavoidable to speak of it. And yes, you can buy a character straight at level 90 out of 100 in that game. If this story complaint is caved into, the next complaint will be to implement this level boost and start people off at 50 right away, 100% it will happen eventually. I have no desire to go down that road.