Possible level/story jumps....really?

[Toguro]

Oh pleeeeeease no

Why would they do this?

You want to skip the game to play the game?

You skipped to level 60 with story complete and everything. What now? Do the end-game trials and raids. 1 month later: "I'm bored"

With something like this there is no point in having story, leveling, or anything lol.

It's like having hunters in a woods. They are expected to hunt everyday for food and water. But there's also a choice to go to restaurant to get a lifetime supply of food and water for free.

How many will hunt?

[HakaseNyan]

This is another one of those situations where the ideas are about 50/50. Doing ARR will almost guarantee the new player will learn their roles and how the game works. It would also make the story flow better, no? If jumping ahead ever does get an implementation, I hope it's made very clear to new players what they're getting themselves into. On the flip side, I do kind of like the idea of being able to jump a character through ARR. I'd like to have multiple characters each having their own job/style. I feel like some races look better playing certain jobs than others, but trekking through ARR multiple times, to fulfill that desire, makes me groan. I've already done it twice.

[LineageRazor]

Level/story-skip potions are not needed. Not yet, at least. There's no question that SE boned it bigtime by locking absolutely everything in Heavensward (in particular, the new jobs) behind ARR completion, but as long as they don't make the same mistakes with future expansions it should not be an issue.

The story for the 4.0 expansion looks like it's going to involve seeing what became of Yda and Papalymo, just as 3.0 included the fates of Yshtola, Thancred, and Minfillia. This implies to me that, while ARR completion will likely still be necessary to continue the storyline there, they COULD tailor it so that you could do it before Heavensward. Think of it as branching paths - you can either go to Ishgard, or you can go to Ala Mihgo after the events of 2.5, but you'll eventually be expected to do both.

Whether they take this route or not, I'd definitely encourage SE NOT to gate any new jobs behind ARR completion, and to include at least some other new content. Allow players to visit the new 4.0 areas. Let them explore the safe town areas, and even venture into the more dangerous zones, even if enemy levels are too high to make going there worthwhile. If players haven't completed ARR, Yda and Papalymo won't be there. If they have, that's where you go to find them.

FFXI's method for doing expansions was much more appropriate for a MMO. Rather than sticking to a single narrative, each expansion (excepting Zilart) was a side story. Taken all together, they developed the world beautifully. The vision for FFXIV, on the other hand, seems to be a much more linear central storyline: Finish ARR, then finish Heavensward, then finish 4.0, then finish 5.0, etc. That simply is not sustainable; as the game ages, there will be more and more backstory for new players to slog through simply to get caught up, eventually to the point where I'd guess even Japanese players would start to get frustrated. But simply SKIPPING that backstory would be horrible. It should be an optional thing that players can get to once they feel like they have the leisure to do so.

And, to be honest, the primary reason for a linear storyline would be so that the Warrior of Light could continue adventuring with the Scions of the Seventh Dawn - who are really kind of a bland bunch to begin with. I pretty much relish the notion of eventually parting ways with them and finding new friends and colleagues in far-flung realms, maybe with the occasional guest appearance of characters from ARR and other expansions.

[Cakekizyy]

They already greatly increased the exp rewards from ARR MSQ with patch 3.0, so it's a lot smoother than before expansion.

Even with doing all side quests on main, still hit a few spots in MSQ where I had to xp grind to accept next quest.

[Anzaman]

Even with doing all side quests on main, still hit a few spots in MSQ where I had to xp grind to accept next quest.

Hmm, I see - leveled myself about month before expansion came, so I haven't tested how smooth 1-50 leveling is nowadays.

[Underdog2204]

They just need to make the new area's more accessible to allow for easier access to new jobs.

[Vaer]

Boost was inevitable. I was just wondering when they were going to add it. IMO if they do it, it should just come once with the expansion and not buyable in unlimited quantities like in WoW or other games. They should also keep everything locked except the new expansion content so you still have to go back and unlock it later if you want to do roulettes. It just lets you do the new expansion stuff right away but previous content you still have to go unlock it the old way.

[Voltyblast]

As much as I never followed the story, I can see people having issues with this...but at the same time I can see also new people having issues with this. I speak from the words of some of my friends who just couldn't stand the story paddings and just preferred to play another game. Is it their fault if the story didn't get them? Absolutely not: taste is subjective, but I'm pretty sure we can -objectively- agree on the fact that a lot of story parts are just fillers for the sake of being filler. Infact if the story was less padded I would've probably followed it more often. Not enjoy it, but definitely had more than zero interest!

But I will say this: I don't care if the expansion is locked behind a story (I always enjoy campaigns, even if I don't follow it), but PLEASE do not lock jobs behind it. While this isn't a case for my friends, I always heard of people complaining of how their "next to be job" was locked for "lore" reasons (yet they could re-roll Au Ra and follow the ARR story, causing plot holes? I-I don't...get it....whatever), so if they have to lock an expantion behind a story lock, at least don't lock jobs.

Or at least lock the jobs behind a reasonable level (if the next expansion's level cap is 70, then make the new jobs start at 60: the way how DRK MCH and AST were implemented was so annoying, that I didn't care to start out until I finished everything)

[Aurum]

Having played since 2.1, I have to say that I wholly support the idea of an "express lane" for the story, but am against level-boosting beyond 25 or so. The story is nice, I'll admit, but many of the quests in the MSQ chain were frustrating. Remember the quest chain just before titan that involved getting various tea ingredients?

What I'd like is an alternate starting point for anyone that has the expansions. Heck, all you have to do is have the new hero wake up with amnesia so that the game can assume your character has been part of the story all along and just doesn't remember. Then you have an "express" questline for leveling that gives you all of your abilities in a reasonable amount of time(maybe it makes you play each dungeon once or something) and an optional seperate questline that lets you remember (aka replay) the 2.x story.

[Sayori]

I sincerely hope they don't add this to mog station..