Main Scenario Restriction Bloodstorm - Very Very Bad idea.

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

A bit of streamlining is in order, yes. Along with some EXP adjustments. Beyond that? Just play the game. Enjoy the game. Don't like/care about the story? Fine, skip it, level another job instead. You'll need it. (I'm looking at you gung ho DRKs who never leveled PLD or any tank to begin with). Skipping or bypassing 2 thirds of the game is rather pointless as necessity and the wait between new content added will lead you to do it anyways. So really, no point rushing to the top. You'll just be sent right back if and when you're a Red Mage without Swiftcast or Stoneskin.

[Yasuhiro]

"Why does the 14th entry of a series that's been going for 30 years have a story that's been a staple of the series for said amount of years"
This game is very entry level but I wish devs would emphasis that this game is for fans of the series first and foremost, it's getting annoying when new players ask and demand that the story should be skipped. You don't have to like XIV's story, I certainly don't but it comes with the package when new players decided to pick up a game with Final Fantasy on the title with "online" tacked on the bottom.

But I'm actually fine with them maybe gutting a few MSQ's that do drag on, like the Titan quest line or any of the other World of Warcraft style boar butt collecting quests. 2.0 to 2.1 was a very poor Final Fantasy experience and is not the best representation of the game in my

subjective

opinion.

It funny that the 2 doing the most pokeing and picking at everything are both form Balmung....just saying >.>

It's always Balmung, always.

[Derio]

All they have to do is increase the experience gains from HW MSQ

[ADVSS]

i still think a level jump potion is a bad idea, and story definately could be more pruned down, better exp rewards, less fetchy qand dear god no more of that moogle in churning mist stuff. MSQ probably would have been more engaging if the instanced fights allowed you to not break party and have friends join in, and hw did a pretty good job of making the story feel like a journey yet, still the same thing as the main character was in a party rechnically but not in a party. As well as running quests along friends, it seemed kinda exclusive to that and felt more solo play than anything, it wouldnt be hard for them to fix that part. As far as people not being interested in story? And just reaching end game at max level, im sure there could be a way to do this most of the raid scenarios and expert dungeons dont even follow story line, technically.The things they would be missing out on would be that hand out gear, and what should be a very enticing(much faster) exp gains. Either way i feel like story being level locked is one of the biggest pains since 2.0 launched, that and not being able to do it together.

I think a sync feature like the vanu beast tribes, loweing the difficulty or rewards based on char level would be great, if they could find a way to have story start at say 30/60 to allow vets and new players to jump right in together might not be too bad.

[Kikoten]

I have an idea for an April Fool's joke. SE creates an in-game "event" to make people think they're going to get super-leveled clear up to 60 by the end of the quest line. The entire time, the NPCs literally call the reward "60," and talk about you getting your "60." Then, when you get to the end of the quest, you get your "60," in the form of a special firework that traces the number 60 above your head.

[Lukha]

Well, judging from the number of 'likes' on the OP compared to the first-page posts disagreeing with it, people overwhelmingly do not want to see new players skipping over the story or leveling process. We should all thank OP for starting this topic, so the devs can see exactly how the community feels about the matter.

[Blackoutz]

If you tell your new members how great the endgame is and how funny raid/extreme are, they want it asap.
You say they are all alone in central shroud? So where are you to help them as the fc lead? Where are your members?
FFXIV is a story game, enjoy it as much as possible and don't rush through it because you want to do the raid.
It's like playing FFX just because you want to beat SIN and not for the story etc.
You say it costs 30 days to play endgame. Okay. 30 days of fun and joy sounds nice to me.

(Sorry for my bad english)

[Nestama]

Well, judging from the number of 'likes' on the OP compared to the first-page posts disagreeing with it, people overwhelmingly do not want to see new players skipping over the story or leveling process. We should all thank OP for starting this topic, so the devs can see exactly how the community feels about the matter.

New players can still skip cutscenes. OP was over the top with their 'MSQ already rewarded' comment, however story should not take priority over pay to play gameplay. If people want to wander around dangerous Stormblood zones, then they shouldn't be denied access (story dungeons and endgame zones can be locked off, though. Raids should be available to do the moment a player gains access to {endgame zone} or max level though. This way they won't feel compelled to skip through the story ASAP just to get to what they pay their sub for). They paid for the expansion, they have a right to actually see what's behind door number 3.

[silentwindfr]

New players can still skip cutscenes. OP was over the top with their 'MSQ already rewarded' comment, however story should not take priority over pay to play gameplay. If people want to wander around dangerous Stormblood zones, then they shouldn't be denied access (story dungeons and endgame zones can be locked off, though. Raids should be available to do the moment a player gains access to {endgame zone} or max level though. This way they won't feel compelled to skip through the story ASAP just to get to what they pay their sub for). They paid for the expansion, they have a right to actually see what's behind door number 3.

simply a big no, the game is a story one based, the raiding come after.... seriously.... new player that want everything now without work for it need to learn patient and dedication.

[Neophyte]

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.

Do your homework. Since 3.25 it's 168h and not 40h anymore.

But sure... in 5.0 we will be fine with requirement to retain sprout pushed to 450h, because of all that MSQ.

Also those sprouts you see in Idyllshire are most likely

• alternate characters
• or people who skipped every single cutscene and/or got carried unsynched through most dungeons (i.e. if they're DPS mains)

You can't complete Heavensward if you watch the entire story within 168h. You can't even reach end of ARR within 40h (maybe with very, very much help). Period.
I don't even have to include the 5-10(?) optional dungeons for that.

If you're worried about bad players in endgame content, that's what the sprouts are for.
Every Player you see with a sprout is less than 168h playing and therefore maybe not experienced enough for current extreme or savage content. That simple.
There is absolutly no difference in player skill after the 168h are over, regardless if they did the MSQ for that time or did lvl 50/60 content right away for all that time.
Oh wait, that's wrong... someone doing 160+h of endgame content is most likely better than someone doing 160+h leveling content (and at least 30h of just watching things).

If you're worried about players skipping the story: Well they do that today anyway, actually you can skip almost every single line of dialogue and cutscene.
Lol, just walk up to any of those sprouts and ask them where Cid comes from... wonder how many say actually Garlemald.

And this is even self-enhancing: The longer new players need to reach endgame after being invited to this game by a friend already being there, the more they are tempted to actually "skip" cutscenes/story just to be able to play with them in content both of them enjoy.

Is there any real argument, beside "they should complete MSQ for the sake of it"? Player skill? Doesn't depend on that. Players should enjoy the story? You can't force them to, you can only force them to teleport->talk NPC->kill 3 monsers->teleport->etc.. but not to actually watch and listen to the story.

So, what exactly is your point?

And also, let me quote my best joke of the century again:

"FFXIV is happy to prove it wrong until now and will still continue to do it for years."

Yeah, and that is why the talk about level jumps and MSQ skipping started because of Yoshi-P himself. And since Yoshi-P is FF14, "FF14" seems not to be happy to prove us wrong.
"It" shares the same concerns as we do.

Yoshida: In terms of the story- the narratives are continuous. The expectation is that the players will start with ARR and continue through the expansion. The lesson with having 3.0 released was that all of the content of the expansion wasn’t accessible until you beat ARR. The feedback, especially from the Western audiences, was that players weren’t able to access any of the Heavensward content until having completed 2.0. We would still like players to get through the story content, but some of the elements in the expansion we’re considering letting players access certain elements without having to complete content from ARR.

Another thing we’re debating internally is whether or not to have something like World of Warcraft’s jumping potion that would work with both levels an story. The Chinese version actually has something similar to this already. I’m trying to decide if something like this should be timed with 4.0.

WoW would have players pay to jump over and skip levels and it’s something that can be considered for FFXIV as well. Of course this isn’t so we can make money off players wanting to skip the content, but there has always been the debate of when we bring in new players, or if an existing player wants to bring in a new player, there’s disparity with the level gap between them, especially if the player has gone through all the content and their friend is just starting. It would be such an effort for the new player to catch up. I feel that we might want to bridge that gap and have that available as an option. Whether or not to actually implement that or offer it as a purchasable option still hasn’t been decided.

We still have some time until 4.0 so we’re hoping to gather more feedback from players out there to see what would be the best course of action for handling this. I’ve talked to a lot of players familiar with WoW and some of them have said “well why didn’t you have your jumping potion with 3.0?”.

http://gamerescape.com/2016/06/17/e3...naoki-yoshida/

Soooo.. thanks for the laugh.