Friends of mine, new to the game, becoming discouraged by STORY QUESTS

[Niwashi]

Speaking of Archeage - I loved the game. And I hate PvP. CRAZY I KNOW! But I found other things that I absolutely loved, like farming, and raising mounts, making music, and just exploring the beautiful world. But with the logic in this thread, I had absolutely no business playing the game since I hate PvP, which is the core of the game. MMOs have to be diverse since their players are diverse.

But would you go to an Archage forum and create threads asking for PvP to be removed? It's fine to play a game where you don't like a core aspect of it but can accept that aspect for the sake of other things that you do like. It's a different thing to say that a core aspect of a game should be removed because you came to the game despite not liking that core aspect.

This thread (and several others) are saying that a core aspect of FFXIV should be removed from the game because they personally don't like it or some of their friends don't. The fact that access to areas, trials, dungeons, and so on are based on the story of how and why you get there is a core aspect of Final Fantasy. That shouldn't change just because a few players prefer a different style of game.

[CodingSquirrel]

This thread (and several others) are saying that a core aspect of FFXIV should be removed from the game because they personally don't like it or some of their friends don't.

Can we at least debate with some honesty? Instead of misrepresenting other people's opinions.

To your point of there being lore reasons as to why you're in such and such a dungeon. There may be a lore reason that the character is there, but that does not necessitate that area being locked down except as a game mechanics choice. If we wanted to bring lore into this then why are you able to go back and replay those zones once you've beaten them. Based on lore, those enemies should be defeated. You can either handwave it or assume the player (not the character) is time traveling. Gaining access to places you shouldn't yet is effectively the same thing, but in the other direction.

[Zojha]

The fact that access to areas, trials, dungeons, and so on are based on the story of how and why you get there is a core aspect of Final Fantasy.

Primarily, it's a core aspect of linear single-player games, not just final fantasy.

[Niwashi]

Primarily, it's a core aspect of linear single-player games, not just final fantasy.

It's a core aspect of linear games, a category which includes Final Fantasy. (I didn't mean to suggest it was unique to FF.) There are both linear and non-linear single-player games, as well as both linear and non-linear multi-player games (though in the later case, non-linear seems to be more common).

Some players like non-linear games because those can give them a lot more flexibility in choosing what they want to do. The cost of that flexibility, however, is that such games cannot contain the depth of storytelling that's possible in more linear games. SE is good at incorporating storytelling deeply into their games, and in order to do so they tend to stick with a quite linear organization with just a few offshoots into optional content. That's what fans expect and want from the FF franchise.

A player can like both styles. When I want a more open-ended non-linear game, I might play Elder Scrolls (either Oblivion or Skyrim, I don't have ESO). When I want a more linear story-focused game, I might play Final Fantasy or similar ones.

Each approach has its own advantages. But the advantage of the more linear approach is the power it gives the developer to create a deep storyline. The Elder Scrolls games do have a story, even a fairly good story IMO, but most of the gameplay doesn't really relate to it very closely, which makes the story far weaker than it would be if it were a Final Fantasy game with more linear gameplay.

The importance of the story is a huge deal in the popularity of the whole Final Fantasy franchise. In asking SE to make FFXIV less linear by not gating the content on the story, that's essentially asking them to disassociate the story from the game in a way that would prevent them from telling the sort of stories its fans are here for. A game can't tell as deep and involved of a story if the game isn't tightly linked to that story. A little offshoot story that's demoted to being optional content isn't going to be powerful enough to attract FF fans.