100+ old quests to access expansion content...?

[Kuwagami]

Kuwagami has it right by condensing it down as much as he can, but even then a few VERY IMPORTANT plot points are missed out, such as the ascians plans, as well as explanation of the echo (which you might not find important, but it is key to future storytelling, see below as to why this is important).

Actually, I just tried to condense the storyline leading you to Ishgard, as that is really the point bothering OP (can't access Ishgard, aka extension, without this part). There are quite a few other things going on at the same time about the true essence of primals, what the echo is and what it means to be a warrior of light, but none of these are deemed interesting by OP so I skipped them.

I'm going to pretend I am a writer for this game and create a different scenario to show you why this makes no sense.

1. Ishgard has refused strangers in its walls for many centuries before the events take place.

2. One day, the king of Ishgard decided to venture outside of his city walls. He was suddenly attacked by a dragon. You saved him. He came to trust you greatly.

3. You can now enter Ishgard.

I understand what you're saying, but really, that wouldn't work. Firstly, because you can't really shorten all the stuff that takes place so easily. You could get rid of a few FedEx quests maybe, and some "let's become buddies" quests, putting them as optional for rushers, but that's all.

Not to mention that your scenario bears no sense for various reasons :

=> there is no king in Ishgard

=> except for a few warriors and outcasts, noone from Ishgard ever leaves Ishgard. The heretics fled in central Coerthas because they could avoid Ishgard's eyes there. Haurchefant is an outcast, he decided to leave Ishgard on his own and would most likely not return if not our situation at the end of 2.55. As for Aymeric, he came only because we were famous primals slayer, and he needed to deal with Shiva (then Vishap)

=> even IF you were to save the pope or whatever in a 3 steps quests, the only reason why they granted you a pass is because your situation was a life-or-death matter, and they were left with "let us come or Ishgard's saviors are dead with your honor shamed eternally". This kind of scenario takes time to develop, you can't just put it as simply as you did.

There is no lore argument because the "lore" exists within a system created by the people making decisions. It is like trying to prove to someone that "god" exists because he is written about in the bible. It is a logical fallicy. There is no way around this... sorry.

I wanted to discuss about it but I can't find words to express all I want to say about the subject.

I'll just say that games, and J-RPGs in particular, tell you a story. If you don't like the story, that's fine, but you aren't entitled to the end of the game if you didn't beat the scenario first. FFxiv may be a MMO, but it's also a J-RPG and a FF game. It is focused a lot on storytelling. And I don't think that's a bad thing considering the amount of crap in many other MMOs when it comes to scenario. Despite the fact that it bother people like you who just care of the top end game raids.

Just remember that your category of players represent less than 5% of the players in FFxiv.

[zbtiqua]

If you don't like the story, that's fine, but you aren't entitled to the end of the game ... Just remember that your category of players represent less than 5% of the players in FFxiv.

I never claimed I was entitled to skip to the end. That is the point of leveling and it takes however long it takes. If this storyline were built into the leveling process, I wouldn't even complain about it. The only problem here is that you have to basically stop playing the game for 3-4 days to do this quest chain.

I understand what you're saying, but really, that wouldn't work.

Sure it would, it would literally work. The complaints you have about the specifics are easily written away. It wasn't the king, it was the pope. He never usually leaves, but he had to for xyz reasons. If you don't like the dragon attack substitute for anything: foiled assasination plot, resembled a foretold prophecy hero, provided critical resources, etc etc.

[Kuwagami]

I never claimed I was entitled to skip to the end. That is the point of leveling and it takes however long it takes. If this storyline were built into the leveling process, I wouldn't even complain about it. The only problem here is that you have to basically stop playing the game for 3-4 days to do this quest chain

This is not true. The storyline at lv50 is now a part of the levelling process. You get exp AND the gear to survive more than 10 seconds once you enter any extension zone. Sure they could boost the xp gain a bit, but that's still levelling content now.
Also, they'll add xp in all of the lv50 dungeons next week, so even more levellign stuff.

All in all, you just don't like the fact that you have 100 quests at level 50 rather than them being lv50=> 52 or something. Then trust me, you'll hate the 0 quests part at level 57 (because there is no way to level up faster than quests, no matter how anoying they are) (may not be true anymore now with the FATEs xp upgrade).

Sure it would, it would literally work. The complaints you have about the specifics are easily written away. It wasn't the king, it was the pope. He never usually leaves, but he had to for xyz reasons. If you don't like the dragon attack substitute for anything: foiled assasination plot, resembled a foretold prophecy hero, provided critical resources, etc etc.

The city has lived secluded for a millenia, with no contact at all with other people for many centuries. They do not need anything that their land cannot provide. They have never contacted anyone outside their wall (as a city) and most likely wouldn't have without that Shiva incident. The pope has NEVER moved out of his city. Ever. Only low-lifers ever went out of the territory to "defend dragonhead and whitebrim". Usually never to return again.

The highest rank people to leave the city before Aymeric came to us are knights, who are higher ranked than the commoners used for fodder but don't have any importance politically and wouldn't grant you an access in the city.

Haurchefant left the city on his own and wouldn't have returned ever if not for the scenario you don't want. Aymeric only came because of this scenario you don't want.


Try to find even ONE reason that has even a tiny bit of sense as to why you could enter a city refusing strangers since centuries ago with these conditions. Just one. and then I'll look seriously in a way to shorten the story around that. If that can make sense with HS story, that is.

[Niwashi]

Sure it would, it would literally work. The complaints you have about the specifics are easily written away. It wasn't the king, it was the pope. He never usually leaves, but he had to for xyz reasons. If you don't like the dragon attack substitute for anything: foiled assasination plot, resembled a foretold prophecy hero, provided critical resources, etc etc.

But your suggestions (or any of the possible variations, of which I'd agree there are many) are just ways to simplify the story so it wouldn't take as many quests to tell it. That might sound fine to someone who doesn't like story anyway, but it would be a horrible thing to do to everyone who does like storytelling in their games.

A great many of the people here are playing this game because we're avid fans of the entire Final Fantasy franchise and the rich stories told through these games. We want intricate involved plotlines with well developed characters in a richly detailed political environment. Taking a rich involved story and instead replacing it with something so simple that it could be told quickly in just a few quests would be robbing the game of the very thing that makes it worth playing.

That would not only drive their core audience of FF fans away from this game, but could endanger the sales of future games in the franchise as well. The Final Fantasy franchise is far too important to Square Enix to endanger it like that just in case they might pick up a few extra fans of generic MMOs with minimal plots. It's unlikely that they'd pick up enough long-term players to replace the ones they'd lose.