Main Scenario Restriction Bloodstorm - Very Very Bad idea.

[ChocoFeru]

It's ok if people wants to skip story. I won't skip it, and I don't care if others would skip it, so if there's a chance to get new payers, so be it, make the jump potion, it won't affect me directly.

[Nestama]

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.

This is a pay to play Massive Multiplayer Online game. Gameplay should always come first. The second someone hits level cap, they should be allowed to gain access to endgame raids/Trials (as chances are the MSQ will have nothing to do with it).

[Felis]

It's ok if people wants to skip story. I won't skip it, and I don't care if others would skip it, so if there's a chance to get new payers, so be it, make the jump potion, it won't affect me directly.

While skipping MSQ can be accessable, jumping level should not come ingame. We have increased exp rewards from quests for that.
Or make MSQ skip and Level Jump 2 seperated things and the player can only get one of the two for his character.

This is a pay to play Massive Multiplayer Online game. Gameplay should always come first. The second someone hits level cap, they should be allowed to gain access to endgame raids/Trials (as chances are the MSQ will have nothing to do with it).

Not even during 2.x you got automatic access to raids without defeating Ultima Weapon (first lv 50 MSQ).

[Neophyte]

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.

My ~300d playtime consists of maybe 200h of "story" and 291,5d of "no story".
So no, the base foundation of this game is not the story.
The (good) story is just one FF14 specific feature, no more no less.

Also, maybe, it's not the best argument to say "before you can play the contents you like, you have to work and learn patience and dedication."
Like doing the story is in any way some kind of unique esoteric personality building experience.

On the other hand, some people even seem to think that atma farming is some kind of worthwhile experience which builds character, lol.

[Reynhart]

This is a pay to play Massive Multiplayer Online game. Gameplay should always come first. The second someone hits level cap, they should be allowed to gain access to endgame raids/Trials (as chances are the MSQ will have nothing to do with it).

Gameplay =/= Endgame.
Every content is part of the gamepay. Besides, to have access to the "endgame" you also need a minimum gear requirement, that you probably won't have "the second you hit the level cap", and unlocking requirement. The second you hit lvl 60, you won't have access to Creator or City Of Mhach.

Without doing the content, you'll also won't have access to most daily roulettes, anyway, so you're just hindering yourself in the end.

My ~300d playtime consists of maybe 200h of "story" and 291,5d of "no story".
So no, the base foundation of this game is not the story.

Consdering that without this, you wouldn't have access to anything, yes it is. Being the base never meant that it would take most of your playtime to do it. And, in fact, I really doubt the story took you 200h, considering each patch gives, at best 2h of MSQ, dungeons included. (And I doubt 2.0 and 3.0 gives 180h of story combined.)

[Neophyte]

Consdering that without this, you wouldn't have access to anything, yes it is. Being the base never meant that it would take most of your playtime to do it. And, in fact, I reallydoubt the story took you 200h, considering each patch gives, at best 2h of MSQ, dungeons included. (And I doubt 2.0 and 3.0 gives 180h of story combined.)

Yes, because they set it so. But they think about setting it to "not needed", that's why we are discussing here.
Feel free to quote my former post (#460) and try to find any real argument please.

Why is it better to have to

• do MSQ with every character you'll ever create,
• but be able to skip cutscenes and dialogues if not interested in story or doing it with an alternate character and
• learn your class in a slow pace, unless you do Palace of the Dead.
  Which also enables you to get access to all skills once and to do all your leveling either in 1. endgame content environment (i.e. content where you need to know lvl 60 abilities) or 2. single player like content.
  Therefore roulettes and every optional dungeons are not needed in the slightest anymore for reaching the specific levels to continue MSQ, anyway. You still need about the same time, maybe.. But you don't need to do those story pieces anymore, if you don't want to.
  In this content unexperienced players can already play at lvl. 60 together with veterans, any problems so far?
  If you need the roulettes afterwards, you can still unlock them, but while playing through the level up part, you don't need them at all anymore.

instead of being able to

• create one or two characters for endgame (weekly cap, so people like me could create a 2nd alternate without going through MSQ a 3rd time)
• create another character for enjoying the story, if you want to.

And pleeeease... get a feeling for the actual time you need for that stuff. I'm at 25h+ and I have beaten Titan NM yesterday. With skipping every single cutscene, doing only the sidequests to reach the required level to continue and knowing every single shortcut there is. My only "timewaste" which is not related to MSQ is leveling my GLD with leveling roulette (because he gets 150% bonus because of lower level anyway).
So.. you can doubt as much as you want, you're just plain wrong. An average new player needs the 168h at least.

It's 184 MSQ for ARR 2.0.
It's 100 MSQ for 7'th astral era (2.0-2.55)
It's 94 MSQ for HW.
It's 20+ required dungeons.


Sooooo... if you do every MSQ quest within 5 minutes on average and do every dungeon in 15 minutes without queue-time it's already 36,5 hours. 2.0 MSQ cutscenes are ~4h, 3.0 MSQ is 6h. 2.1-2.55 MSQ is 7h cutscenes.
So much to your 40h sprouts in Idyllshire. rofl rofl rofl...

And just to make sure: 5 minutes per MSQ is like the most over-the-top minimization there ever was. Make it 10-15 min. (which is way more realistic) or even 20 mins (because you have to level and do sidequests (unlock mount, retainer + ventures, flying, XP), class/job quests and optional dungeons/PotD to reach certain level requirements; also you need at least a bit of 2nd class leveling for cross class skills and jobs) and you look at 60-125h to reach end-game plus 17h cutscenes alone.

My average time per MSQ right now is 14,x minutes with skipping everything.

[Nestama]

Every content is part of the gamepay. Besides, to have access to the "endgame" you also need a minimum gear requirement, that you probably won't have "the second you hit the level cap", and unlocking requirement. The second you hit lvl 60, you won't have access to Creator or City Of Mhach.

Sure, but at least you'd be able to unlock it prior to the completion of the MSQ and start gearing up for it before finishing the MSQ (unless SE lock dungeons unrelated to the MSQ behind 'defeat X.0 final boss.' Did we really need to beat 'final boss' to unlock Neverreap? or the Botanical Garden? or Pharos Sirius Hard? etc). Completing Gordias and Midas to unlock Creator (and Savage) is quicker than finishing ARR and HW. Likewise with Void Ark to unlock the Weeping City.

[Reynhart]

Fates are not mob grinding, it's not the same as getting a party, going to x spot and grinding mobs without having to wait for one to pop.

Yes, it is. Not all type of mob grinding has to be "stay in the same spot and wait for them to pop again". In FATES, you kill lots of mobs, and you go faster and increase you chance of obtained a high rank if you're in a party.

Look, if endgame is locked behind the story of the same expansion it's in, that is fine. If you're locking current content behind 5-10 years of content, then you're making a huge mistake. Even Zilart, which did require you to beat the Shadowlord to even start its story, still allowed you to explore Zilart zones.

But, its endgame, Sky, was locked behind the story...which was locked behind City rank 6.

Hyperbole.

Remove the need to do ARR, and you could have done HW content in less than a month, unless you're part of the few people who did savage.

FFXI, the game you've been trying to use as an example, also says hi

Are you aware that, in FFXI, all the content from ZM, endgame CoP, ToAU and most of WotG were designed to lvl 75 ? It means everything was relevant at the same time.

Yes, because they set it so. But they think about setting it to "not needed", that's why we are discussing here.

They were thinking about it...but settled on a restriction in the end. Yes, everything probaly won't be gated, like, as I said before, jobs, but you can be sure that we'll still have a lot of content tied to the story. You won't have access to story trials and dungeons, you won't have access to the complete zones, which will require flying, unlocked by 3.0 MSQ. And you probably won't have access to 4.0 endgame, which will be restricted by 4.0 story.

As for a considered "story skip potion"...It will be so much fun to see new players having so little motivation to play the game that they'll spend more real money on it, learn nothing about their jobs during the leveling process, and quitting two months later because the game is too hard and have too little content to do.

Sure, but at least you'd be able to unlock it prior to the completion of the MSQ and start gearing up for it before finishing the MSQ (unless SE lock dungeons unrelated to the MSQ behind 'defeat X.0 final boss.'

Without having done the MSQ, you couldn't obtain enough gear to even meet the ilvl requirement for Neverreap and Fractal, let alone meet the requirement for endgame. And good luck gearing in tome gear without the lvl 60 and Expert roulettes.

[Terribad]

Yes, it is.

No it's not. When people talk about grinding mobs to level, they aren't talking about waiting for one boss or something to appear. Going back to town and waiting for the next one to appear. They're talking about grinding a pack of mobs.

Why play a story based mmo if you are going to skip one of the main features... The Story?

Why do people keep saying this? No where on the box, the website, wikipedia, etc does this say "FFXIV is a story based MMO"(Most likely because that's redundant because all mmos are story based). It just says it's a MMO and people that play MMOs expect it to operate as such. Regardless of if it's Final Fantasy or not, because according to people that played their other MMO, it's not like that there.

[Kathryn]

Why play a story based mmo if you are going to skip one of the main features... The Story?