Main Scenario Restriction Bloodstorm - Very Very Bad idea.

[studionevermore1]

MAKE FINAL FANTASY XIV GREAT AGAIN and make possibility to start game form lvl 60 with all main scenario for people who buy Bloodstorm.

How's about no!

It's an MMO that is STORY DRIVEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If you want to get to the new content, you work for it. Damn entitled millennials!

[Mikhaill]

What they need to do is streamline the MSQ if they are going to keep forcing this.
The population will die out that way eventually. I coulda sworn he said he wouldn't do this again.
There's too many people who quit this game because the BS that was 2.0 MSQ.
I want more people to play with me at the end of the game and have fun and not get tired of talking to Beavis and Butthead in 50 different locations.
2.0 okay maybe, but the more expacs that do this, will pretty much kill the population.
Story-driven game or not, some people don't care for the story, at all.

[Reynhart]

Did you need to beat the Shadowlord to gain access to Sea, Salvage, Walk of Echoes, Abyssea (lol) and Delve, though?

No, but you needed it to acces Dynamis, Sky and progress farther into RoV. And beating Shadowlord was absolutely meaningless in leveling up, where as in XIV, the MSQ is generally the fastest way to level, explore and gear up. As for Sea, it should have since the whole plot of CoP depends on the events in ZM. Didn't you find it silly to see dead people come back ?

Just imagine it, we're on our fifth expansion... and the only way to access it is by beating ARR, HW, SB, 3rd and 4th. It's really silly to think about, yeah?

Yeah, imagine that, I'm a new player in the fifth expansion, and I burn every content in one month because the only thing that matters is the lattest expansion, especially with a leveling potion. Now, I'm bored and have to wait 6 months for anything remotely new to do. That's far more silly to offer to a new player.

Story-driven game or not, some people don't care for the story, at all.

And the apparently won't care for the content, if they purposely avoid the majority of it. Then they'll come here about how the game has nothing to do, and how content is too hard because they didn't take any time to properly learn while leveling instead of being pushed right to the top.
If they don't care to play the game, why do they even pay for it ?

And again, every complain here is from an active player speaking on the behalf of those dear new players they like to defend. In fact you're just putting your words into their mouths.

[LineageRazor]

Wrong. It absolutely does. Most end-game content was/is gated behind the story. Dynamis, Limbus, Sky, Sea were among the major end-game content gated behind the story. Certain other content was gated partially by story. Assaults, Nyzul, unlocking various jobs, Escha, etc.

As I noted much earlier in the thread, this is only partly true. There are many endgame activities that are not locked behind MSQ, or only behind a minimal amount of MSQ. Endgame activities that provide endgame-quality gear. Voidwatch NMs are one good example, but MOST of the endgame for the Seekers of Adoulin expansion could be accessed right off the bat, or with only a handful of MSQs (the first three MSQs, if I recall correctly?).

The biggest takeaway in how FFXI did things RIGHT is that each new expansion had LOADS of content available right off the bat. Even Rise of the Zilart, the ONLY expansion that required ANY MSQ progress from the base game before you could access its own MSQ, provided more than half a dozen new zones that you could explore from day one, all with their own quests, objectives, and new jobs to play which could be accessed without even a scrap of MSQ progress in the base set OR RotZ. Only Sky was locked away.

Compare that to Heavensward. What could you access in Heavensward, if you hadn't completed MSQ? Au Ra. That is all. Not a great incentive for a prospective customer to buy the product.

Fortunately, SE has seen the errors of their ways, and at least SOME content in Stormblood will be accessible without completing MSQ. I am worried, though, that it will not be enough. I'm fairly certain that ALL of endgame will still be locked behind Stormblood MSQ, which will be locked behind Heavensward MSQ, which is locked behind ARR MSQ. And that the next expansion will continue the trend. And the next. And eventually, players looking for an MMO (even players who LOVE storyline) will see how long it will take before they can start participating in battles that are both challenging AND provide meaningful rewards... and move on to another MMO. They day that happens is the day that this MMO starts to die, and as a player who loves this game, I don't want to see that happen.

There may be players playing this game who love the story and absolutely don't care about endgame, but I'd guess they are a minority, at best. Most players at least want the option to swim in the deep water, even if they're not good at it or casual about it.

This kind of end-to-end storytelling which assumes that all previous expansions have been completed simply isn't sustainable in the long term. It's just peachy for long-time players who already have all or most of the MSQ behind them - but any MMO needs a constant influx of NEW players, as well. This guy put it quite well:

The MSQ of the base game is one thing. But there is and never will be any succesful MMORPG which demands you to play every published X-Pac (in the right order) to enjoy the newest X-Pac.

Never.

Ever.

[Reynhart]

And eventually, players looking for an MMO (even players who LOVE storyline) will see how long it will take before they can start participating in battles that are both challenging AND provide meaningful rewards... and move on to another MMO.

That's the vision of a veteran player. When you're a fresh level 20, Ifrit can be challenging, when you're level 32, drops from Brayflox's Longstop are meaningful, when you're level 50, Titan Hard mode is challenging.
Doing each dungeon for the first time is way more "meaningful" in experiencing a new MMO than buying the latest gear after running the same high level dungeon for the thousandth time.

This guy put it quite well:

This guy just used its personal crystall ball to tell the best joke of the century. FFXIV is happy to prove it wrong until now and will still continue to do it for years. If, like you said, gating content behing MSQ was sooooooooooo bad, you wouldn't have that much sprouts in the game and SE would have learned their lesson. I'm sure they have a much clearer view on the real impact of their choice that anything you could say.

Speaking of sprouts, it's not the uncommon to see them in Idyllshire, so it took them less than 40 hour to complete a huge part of the MSQ already.

[Mikhaill]

And the apparently won't care for the content, if they purposely avoid the majority of it. Then they'll come here about how the game has nothing to do, and how content is too hard because they didn't take any time to properly learn while leveling instead of being pushed right to the top.
If they don't care to play the game, why do they even pay for it ?

And again, every complain here is from an active player speaking on the behalf of those dear new players they like to defend. In fact you're just putting your words into their mouths.

...I dunno what you're talking about, because I'm not speaking for everyone...all I was saying was they need to condense the story line with all the menial tasks and useless fluff they got going.
People for a fact, have quit this game because of it. Do you want people to quit because they have to fetch a teacup and bringing it to ABCDEFG then around again forever?
This isn't a "pure" story game...it's a MMO with contents like raiding, crafting, minion collecting, mount collecting dungeoning and all things else, not a Visual Novel.

[Reynhart]

This isn't a "pure" story game...it's a MMO with contents like raiding, crafting, minion collecting, mount collecting dungeoning and all things else, not a Visual Novel.

Yes, and your idea is that new players should skip 90% of it.

But hey, I'm not worry about it. This thread alone proves that the community is heavily divided on this idea, so SE will just go on with their initial choice.
Enjoy your gating

[Mikhaill]

Yes, and your idea is that new players should skip 90% of it.

How is weeding out useless text in the MSQ killing 90% of it?
You're the one putting words in peoples mouths.
"Oh hi, there's this cool bird down the road..."
"WTF? Can we remove this piece of context..."
"NO! BECAUSE THE PLAYER WON'T EVER KNOW ABOUT THAT BIRD DOWN THE ROAD."

???????????
I guess I killed the story because of that one single bird the minority cared about lol.

[Istaru]

Welcome.

Two days ago Yoshida-Sama Says about restriction to enter a Bloodstorm - We have to complete a Main Scenario form A realm reborn and Heavensward. I Really love this game but also i'm a leader of Free Company and i see how many people bounce from this game because first 50 lvl are birring and arenas form A realm Reborn are empty. Now i have to tell my new players they have to make 400 main scenario quest and spend almost 300 hours to do it to reach content with all players want.

Sorry for that but i have to say it: Are you Fu... Kidding me?! Yoshida! Expansion is the best moment to reach new players - they must have options to reach new content as possible and play together with us because if they will be leave in central shroud alone they will just leave the game.

MAKE FINAL FANTASY XIV GREAT AGAIN and make possibility to start game form lvl 60 with all main scenario for people who buy Bloodstorm.

They don't want to stay because the MSQ takes to long to get through.

Seriously, how long do you think they would stay even with a jump potion to 50, 60 or even 70?

Boring MSQ driving them away? Oh yeah, like endgame is all that exciting.

[SessionZero]

The number one complaint I hear from people who have tried this game and then dropped it is that the early game is too boring. Now, that's subjective, because I played from 2.0 on and rather enjoyed the 2.X series, but then again, this was Back In The Day before we even knew what a Heavensward was. Knowing what you're missing out on while you're dinking around in Camp Drybone talking to people dressed as a hobo probably puts a new spin on things.

Someone earlier in this thread mentioned condensing 2.1-2.5 and 3.1-3.5 into a "Meanwhile, at the Legion of Doom" type thing to somewhat lessen the gate into expansion content without entirely ripping out the real meat of the matter, and that I can get behind. They should probably still include particularly important events, like the final confrontation with Nidhogg, but condensing the in-between for 2.0-3.0 and 3.0-4.0 probably wouldn't go awry, at least in my opinion.