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

[Niwashi]

You are suggesting SE design and devise branching timelines to accommodate your desire to not have 4.0 tied to anything? They would have to completely void every bit of story and branch it elsewhere for no reason. They have a story that is still developing with the Garlean Empries and the Ascians that is further developed in 3.0. They are not likely going to discard that just to reset from 2.0 and build elsewhere. Because 2.0 ends off at a very different stage than 2.55 does or even what 3.0 will, with the world and characters being in very different places and circumstances.

I'm not suggesting anything of the sort. There's no branching timelines here, just multiple game expansions. The timeline always follows the expansions and patches in order. A given player might get the expansions in another order, just the way a person might read the latest book in a series or the watch the latest episode of a TV series, and later go back and read or watch the rest. It doesn't branch the timeline of the stories. The stories remain fixed in a set order. It just means you read/watched/played a story that came later in the timeline and then might read/watch/play a story that comes earlier in the timeline.

Personally, I prefer to start any series (TV, books, or whatever) at the beginning and follow it straight through in order. But many people don't.

[Belhi]

I'm not suggesting anything of the sort. There's no branching timelines here, just multiple game expansions. The timeline always follows the expansions and patches in order. A given player might get the expansions in another order, just the way a person might read the latest book in a series or the watch the latest episode of a TV series, and later go back and read or watch the rest. It doesn't branch the timeline of the stories. The stories remain fixed in a set order. It just means you read/watched/played a story that came later in the timeline and then might read/watch/play a story that comes earlier in the timeline.

Personally, I prefer to start any series (TV, books, or whatever) at the beginning and follow it straight through in order. But many people don't.

With how they have designed the game that might be somewhat tricky to implement, particularly with areas that reflect things that have happened in the story. It would require an overhaul of a great many aspects of the design including how the game is unlocked. Their system might not be designed in such a way that you can hop back to earlier parts of the story once you have passed them. In addition, unless they have some type of auto level feature, it will still require players to get enough gear and experience to get to the endgame. Even if you skip the story your still grinding to 60 and getting gear to survive the new content.

Its an interesting idea and it would open the chance to allow people to replay parts of the story but I'm not sure how realistic an option to implement it is.

[SDaemon]

Personally, I prefer to start any series (TV, books, or whatever) at the beginning and follow it straight through in order. But many people don't.

So letting players jump from the beginning to various parts of the middle of the story at will? While that could work in theory I don't see SE taking that route and if they did it would be riddled with recap cut-scenes so that players were getting the full story. They'd also have to redo how certain parts of the game are unlocked.

[Niwashi]

It would require an overhaul of a great many aspects of the design including how the game is unlocked. Their system might not be designed in such a way that you can hop back to earlier parts of the story once you have passed them.

It's already handling lots of different storylines concurrently. You have a quest line for each of your classes or jobs. There are a few sidestory questlines. And there's the Main Scenario. If it can already keep track of where you're at in each of them, then it should be able to track where you're at in both Heavensward and whatever expansion comes next.

As for areas reflecting what's happened, if they have each expansion open new areas (like they did with the current one) then that takes care of most of the issue. Ishgard and its surroundings would reflect your Heavensward progress. The next expansion's areas would reflect your progress in that expansion's story. The only place they'd need to be careful with are the ARR areas that are already unlocked with just the base game. But even there, they could still have changes so long as they're not mutually exclusive open world changes.

(Some mutually exclusive changes could be handled with instancing. For example, if in the early part of HW you're supposed to meet a character in Mor Dhona who shouldn't exist if you're playing the 4.0 or 5.0 expansion, then they'd just need to be in a room that you enter as part of that quest that requires them. That's pretty much how its currently handled if you're playing a 2.0 class quest after you're past 2.55 in the MSQ, since we can already take stuff out of timeline sequence in cases like that where they're in different quest chains.)

In addition, unless they have some type of auto level feature, it will still require players to get enough gear and experience to get to the endgame. Even if you skip the story your still grinding to 60 and getting gear to survive the new content.

There's no need for an auto level feature when we've got perfectly good leveling features already. There's lots of dungeons, FATEs, and numerous sidequests already in the game (quite a glut of them at level 50 in fact). Do all the level 50 content and you'll likely be nearing 60 anyway. Do some of it a few extra times, and you're there.

Meanwhile, you can craft or buy good enough gear to serve as starter equipment for the next expansion. Or perhaps those prologue quests that set up the reasons for heading into the next expansion (since those quests are going to be needed regardless) would reward some decent starting gear for it.

So letting players jump from the beginning to various parts of the middle of the story at will? While that could work in theory I don't see SE taking that route and if they did it would be riddled with recap cut-scenes so that players were getting the full story.

I'm not sure I'd describe a single point at the start of each new expansion as "riddled with" but if they have to do a recap to kick off an expansion it should be a very limited one that's more of a "where we left off" summary than an actual recap. You get the full story by playing the full story.

Recaps, if they're to exist at all, should be limited to just brief bits and pieces, providing only the parts most necessary to the following expansion that you're heading into without telling any more than absolutely necessary of the preceding expansion(s) that they're re-capping. Any story threads that were already brought to conclusion shouldn't be mentioned. Nor should any that aren't going to make much of an appearance in the new expansion you're heading into.

Different expansions do generally have different focuses. Some overarching plot developments will carry over from one to another, but there's also a lot of story about the more current or local issues that will be brought up and then concluded within the same expansion. The former could perhaps get a recap, but the later should be restricted to when you're actually playing that content.

[SDaemon]

I'm not sure I'd describe a single point at the start of each new expansion as "riddled with" but if they have to do a recap to kick off an expansion it should be a very limited one that's more of a "where we left off" summary than an actual recap. You get the full story by playing the full story.

Recaps, if they're to exist at all, should be limited to just brief bits and pieces, providing only the parts most necessary to the following expansion that you're heading into without telling any more than absolutely necessary of the preceding expansion(s) that they're re-capping. Any story threads that were already brought to conclusion shouldn't be mentioned. Nor should any that aren't going to make much of an appearance in the new expansion you're heading into.

Different expansions do generally have different focuses. Some overarching plot developments will carry over from one to another, but there's also a lot of story about the more current or local issues that will be brought up and then concluded within the same expansion. The former could perhaps get a recap, but the later should be restricted to when you're actually playing that content.

I would, as each new expansion came out they would need to add more recaps at each new "start point". And each new "start point" would have longer or shorter recaps depending on how far ahead in the story they are jumping. You don't get the full story by playing the game because if you don't own/play part B to the story, your story would literally go Part A -> Part C. They must add a recap of some sort so as to fill the gaps left in the story. Simply saying they'd get it by playing is silly if they don't own part B (though again I fully see them requiring HW to be on your account for 4.0 to work).

Recaps should give the full general idea of what the story that they are skipping is about. They don't need every minor detail or death or decision, but it would need to be clear, concise and cover all the story that they would be skipping. Of course story threads that began and concluded should be included if they were stories that started and ended within an expansion so long as that story is part of the MSQ.

Just because 3.0, 4.0, 5.0 and so on have their own focus in the story doesn't mean that the stories are isolated events. Events that happened throughout 2.0 impacted 3.0. Events that happen in 3.0 are going to have an impact on everything as well and continue on to 4.0. The MSQ is a linear progression and while the direction of the story may change the main cast of characters has flowed with it, changing to each event. 2.0 Minfilia isn't the same as 3.0 Minfilia, Aymeric here in 3.0 isn't going to be the same Aymeric that would be in 4.0, Raubhan in 2.0 isn't the same one we have now in 3.0. All of this because as the story progressed things happened to them during the MSQ. A doesn't need to be recapped currently because B required A to have been played, but assume is doesn't. B would need to recap events A, C would need to recap events A and B, D would need to recap events A, B and C. So that players at A who now jump to D would have a summary of the MSQ up to that point.

[Reinha]

I think a recap is a bad idea. It will diminish the experience of anyone who would want to go back to do 3.0 some day. If the story of 4.0 is not built on 3.0 (which has been hinted I think) then it's not necessary to make a short version of HW story. Those who care can go back to do it when they wish.

I'm not sure I'd describe a single point at the start of each new expansion as "riddled with" but if they have to do a recap to kick off an expansion it should be a very limited one that's more of a "where we left off" summary than an actual recap. You get the full story by playing the full story.

Recaps, if they're to exist at all, should be limited to just brief bits and pieces, providing only the parts most necessary to the following expansion that you're heading into without telling any more than absolutely necessary of the preceding expansion(s) that they're re-capping. Any story threads that were already brought to conclusion shouldn't be mentioned. Nor should any that aren't going to make much of an appearance in the new expansion you're heading into.

Different expansions do generally have different focuses. Some overarching plot developments will carry over from one to another, but there's also a lot of story about the more current or local issues that will be brought up and then concluded within the same expansion. The former could perhaps get a recap, but the later should be restricted to when you're actually playing that content.

^Agreed.

[Niwashi]

Recaps should give the full general idea of what the story that they are skipping is about. They don't need every minor detail or death or decision, but it would need to be clear, concise and cover all the story that they would be skipping. Of course story threads that began and concluded should be included if they were stories that started and ended within an expansion so long as that story is part of the MSQ.

Think of it like the recap scenes included at the start of an episode in many TV series. Even though they show things that have happened previously, they're doing that in order to explain the current state of the world and characters rather than to summarize those past stories. A story thread that was already concluded in the previous episode or previous season won't be included. Only those events from previous episodes that are going to carry over into the current episode's plot are recapped. (Though in many cases those may not have even been the significant major plot points at the time they occurred.) If you want to know what else happened last season (like last season's main plot), then you need to watch last season's episodes.

[Duuude007]

I literally had a playtime stamp of 4 days, 9 hours the moment my alt first entered ishgard. At level 52 PLD upon entry, and crossclass abilities already earned.

This was before the "brand new ring" with the huge XP buff was available.

Your friends' problem is not a problem. They are just likely to be easily distracted and making the process take so much longer.

[Jermz]

I literally had a playtime stamp of 4 days, 9 hours the moment my alt first entered ishgard. At level 52 PLD upon entry, and crossclass abilities already earned.

This was before the "brand new ring" with the huge XP buff was available.

Your friends' problem is not a problem. They are just likely to be easily distracted and making the process take so much longer.

Leveling isn't the problem, gated game with required story quests is what I was addressing in this thread.
Your play time was 4 days 9 hours, thats 105 hours. How many hours are you playing a day? My friends and I do the same job, 8am to about 4:30/5:30pm Monday through Friday, we might be able to play 3-4 hours a night, little more on the weekends. if that continued exactly the same every day, it would take about 26 real life days to get to that play time. Thats if its done every night without fail. Real life doesn't allow this. more reasonable is 2-3 nights at 4 hours a piece, maybe a few hours on the weekends or more depending on free time.
2 months works out, but take into account the fact they are new players (yes, probably distracted) its going to stretch out a little farther.

[Snugglebutt]

If spent less time complaining and more time doing you would probably be done by now. Took me a day or two to get through the 50 set of MSQ quests and into Ishgard and that was around half dozen hours a day too. Pre-50 the quests do not take long in between leveling, the person you are talking about with 4 days and 9 hours play time includes leveling but in terms of quests within that leveling period it does not equal 4 days and 9 hours of doing MSQ. MSQ's don't take long within themselves, few minutes normally each and between 15-30 minutes for dungeons/trials. When in queue for those your still doing other things including leveling so your not wasting your time unless you choose to do so. Truth is if you wanted it done quickly you would do it quickly, if your taking your time with it and dragging it out but complaining it's taking too long then that is substantially a problem you are making for yourself.