Main Scenario Restriction Bloodstorm - Very Very Bad idea.

[Paladinleeds]

Eh I'm pretty positive they aren't going to do it either. Atleast they aren't gating the classes like they did with HW. I made a friend play this game and he smashed through ARR to get MCH and was very disappointed. Now he won't doesn't trust my suggestions any more lol.

Intriguing. Has it been confirmed they aren't gating the classes behind the MSQ? If so, then I'm very OK with that.

[Blood-Aki]

I don't think smug means what you think it means...
Also, waiting for a class and unfortunately not liking it when it releases has nothing to do with my point in your original post so.... Alright then.

that was the "nicest" way i could describe your little words such as "hello?" and telling me don't be daft ( i don't think YOU know what that means..) the real word i wanted to use might trigger the mods, so yea, be glad i only said "smug"

and i actually mixed your post with netsama which is a huge mistake on my part because his post was far more smarter then that mess you posted, but i was doing to many things at once, so i didn't get to pick about the subjects like i wanted, however your little (resisting trying to say it) ..words you post as i mentioned above stood out, so let's say we both messed up here, and leave it at that.

[loreleidiangelo]

Intriguing. Has it been confirmed they aren't gating the classes behind the MSQ? If so, then I'm very OK with that.

I'm not, really. For what it's worth, it's not even really that I WANT a level boost potion, or a skip potion, or anything like that... I just want them to take the mandatory quest flags off of everything so that people can do the quests that they want, when they want, and go to the zones that they want even if there's nothing for them to "do" there.

I think that a lot of people are conflating the whole "mandatory MSQ" issue with "need to add level boosts or story skips", when in reality another compromise would be to simply remove a good portion of the "previous quest must be completed" flags off of quests and simply make them flagged by appropriate level instead. Yeah, for people who skip some stuff the MSQ will get a little jumbled, but if people aren't against players mashing ESC through cinematics and 0 through dialogues, then what should it matter if a player chooses to play the MSQ in a slight out-of-order instead?

I'd still prefer level boosts/story skips, because it's a better business decision that doesn't waste dev time and resources re-tooling old content, but if players are really that stuck on the notion of "allowing accessibility to the chaff" then I'd take this as an alternate compromise. It's not about accessing jobs, it's about always having to do the story in a certain way, in a certain order, going to every location in the exact same order, EVERY time. If you get to the Sastasha dungeon quest and for some reason you don't feel like doing a dungeon (anxiety, maybe?), you're stuck. You might level in FFXIV, but you can never do anything meaningful beyond getting that Sastasha out of the way. I think that forcing players into situations like that is mostly what I want to avoid. Some difficult solo instance, or some solo instance with really long or annoying dialogue? Too bad, you can't skip it in FFXIV. In other games you could just outlevel it and move past it, but not this one.

The 2.x content is a good example of this. You're stuck doing Keeper and Snowcloak and all the fetch quests even though you're 50 and want to check out the new zone ASAP. Yeah, that stuff is rewarding EXP, but in pretty much every other game out there you'd be able to just go to that zone and dive in. If you "run out" of exp, well, that's on you, do some dungeons or FATEs or whatever, or re-do those old quests you skipped. But FFXIV doesn't let you play like that, and that bugs me.

Is this a predicament that makes a bit more sense to people? Is this more relatable than just, "players who want boosts or skips are just lazy"? I feel like people are getting too focused on the "I don't want to watch the story" bits and the "I don't want to level from 1-60" bits when in reality we should be looking at, "level from 1-60 right now is really rigid and inflexible in terms of how the story and content guides you".

To me it's kind of funny, because even WITH boosts I feel like WoW does leveling better. Each race has it's own unique starting area, the Horde and Alliance leveling paths are both pretty different depending on faction, and if you want you get enough exp where you can "outlevel" a zone on a character and skip a zone you hate, without the game forcing you to do that zone anyway "because lore reasons". Admittedly, with WoW's big focus on alts (there's much less use for them here than in that game), it kind of makes sense that alternate leveling paths would be a given, but even just the freedom to bypass an area like Southern Thanalan on my alt leveling journey would make me insanely happy, tbh.

[Eimian_Eda]

that was the "nicest" way i could describe your little words such as "hello?" and telling me don't be daft ( i don't think YOU know what that means..) the real word i wanted to use might trigger the mods, so yea, be glad i only said "smug"

and i actually mixed your post with netsama which is a huge mistake on my part because his post was far more smarter then that mess you posted, but i was doing to many things at once, so i didn't get to pick about the subjects like i wanted, however your little (resisting trying to say it) ..words you post as i mentioned above stood out, so let's say we both messed up here, and leave it at that.

Alright then.

smug; adjective
having or showing an excessive pride in oneself or one's achievements.

daft; adjective
silly; foolish.
"don't ask such daft questions"

Not sure why you love to pick fights with everyone on the forums.

[Blood-Aki]

Alright then.

smug; adjective
having or showing an excessive pride in oneself or one's achievements.

daft; adjective
silly; foolish.
"don't ask such daft questions"

Not sure why you love to pick fights with everyone on the forums.

So basicaly, you are the daft one, gotcha, and no i don't pick fights with everyone on the forums, not even here enough to do that, so wrong again, i know you are trying, but you're failing, hon, sorry.

and i already know the definitions, if you actually read my posts you'd understand why you now classify as daft., in an ironic twist, you are the one picking the fight, since you made a very silly and pointless response to my post full of using words that did not apply to me in any form. That is why i questioned your understanding of the definitions, but since you looked up the meanings (good job) i hope you see it now.

You should allso looking "jumping to conclusions" because that is another one you just did.

[Welsper59]

I'm not, really. For what it's worth, it's not even really that I WANT a level boost potion, or a skip potion, or anything like that... I just want them to take the mandatory quest flags off of everything so that people can do the quests that they want, when they want, and go to the zones that they want even if there's nothing for them to "do" there.

I think that a lot of people are conflating the whole "mandatory MSQ" issue with "need to add level boosts or story skips", when in reality another compromise would be to simply remove a good portion of the "previous quest must be completed" flags off of quests and simply make them flagged by appropriate level instead. Yeah, for people who skip some stuff the MSQ will get a little jumbled, but if people aren't against players mashing ESC through cinematics and 0 through dialogues, then what should it matter if a player chooses to play the MSQ in a slight out-of-order instead?

I'd still prefer level boosts/story skips, because it's a better business decision that doesn't waste dev time and resources re-tooling old content, but if players are really that stuck on the notion of "allowing accessibility to the chaff" then I'd take this as an alternate compromise. It's not about accessing jobs, it's about always having to do the story in a certain way, in a certain order, going to every location in the exact same order, EVERY time. If you get to the Sastasha dungeon quest and for some reason you don't feel like doing a dungeon (anxiety, maybe?), you're stuck. You might level in FFXIV, but you can never do anything meaningful beyond getting that Sastasha out of the way. I think that forcing players into situations like that is mostly what I want to avoid. Some difficult solo instance, or some solo instance with really long or annoying dialogue? Too bad, you can't skip it in FFXIV. In other games you could just outlevel it and move past it, but not this one.

The 2.x content is a good example of this. You're stuck doing Keeper and Snowcloak and all the fetch quests even though you're 50 and want to check out the new zone ASAP. Yeah, that stuff is rewarding EXP, but in pretty much every other game out there you'd be able to just go to that zone and dive in. If you "run out" of exp, well, that's on you, do some dungeons or FATEs or whatever, or re-do those old quests you skipped. But FFXIV doesn't let you play like that, and that bugs me.

Is this a predicament that makes a bit more sense to people? Is this more relatable than just, "players who want boosts or skips are just lazy"? I feel like people are getting too focused on the "I don't want to watch the story" bits and the "I don't want to level from 1-60" bits when in reality we should be looking at, "level from 1-60 right now is really rigid and inflexible in terms of how the story and content guides you".

To me it's kind of funny, because even WITH boosts I feel like WoW does leveling better. Each race has it's own unique starting area, the Horde and Alliance leveling paths are both pretty different depending on faction, and if you want you get enough exp where you can "outlevel" a zone on a character and skip a zone you hate, without the game forcing you to do that zone anyway "because lore reasons". Admittedly, with WoW's big focus on alts (there's much less use for them here than in that game), it kind of makes sense that alternate leveling paths would be a given, but even just the freedom to bypass an area like Southern Thanalan on my alt leveling journey would make me insanely happy, tbh.

I think you're kinda cherry picking points to argue here. I agree that it really doesn't need to be as restrictive as it is when it comes to some zone or most dungeon access, but your reasoning behind some of this is very easy to counterpoint.

Looking at the most vulnerable part of your argument, your last paragraph:

To me it's kind of funny, because even WITH boosts I feel like WoW does leveling better. Each race has it's own unique starting area, the Horde and Alliance leveling paths are both pretty different depending on faction, and if you want you get enough exp where you can "outlevel" a zone on a character and skip a zone you hate, without the game forcing you to do that zone anyway "because lore reasons". Admittedly, with WoW's big focus on alts (there's much less use for them here than in that game), it kind of makes sense that alternate leveling paths would be a given, but even just the freedom to bypass an area like Southern Thanalan on my alt leveling journey would make me insanely happy, tbh.

At what point are you actually forced to do a zone in this game because of lore reasons? MSQ requiring you to go to a zone is not a meaningful argument, if that's what you were referring to with the lore comment, since you're usually in and out in minutes. Might as well complain that you have to go get Aetheryte access before you can teleport, if that were the case lol.

I barely did quests in old zones when I leveled, even till today, since FATEs were a more efficient use of time... and story behind generic quests are mostly lackluster. In ARR zones, you have a lot of freedom to not do a specific zone if you don't want to. We have three regions, all of which offer mostly identical level ranges to get exp from. There's only one or two dry ranges for exp, I think. That can easily be bypassed with quests or dungeons. We even have PotD now. Most players, even new ones, understand that doing MSQ is beneficial, so dungeon accessibility isn't exactly unreasonable as it is. If I recall right, I barely leveled in Southern Thanalan for some jobs. It's a good zone to exp in, don't get me wrong, but you have other options open.

Even in WoW, tons of zones were terrible to level in. Any feeling of confinement here to doing specific zones, only because they're the best option, was felt a hundred times over in WoW.

Looking at your mention of being able to jump around on the MSQ or quests in general, it really doesn't work that way. Think of the greatest story you've ever experienced, be it books, movies, whatever. Imagine jumping to key points right off the bat, without even knowing character names, how fair would that be to the creators of it? Given how expressive we tend to be about what's "good" or "bad" about something, I'd bet a lot of money that some idiot would actually think their opinion about the story as valid, despite having done what I said.

What I'm getting at with that is that MSQ requirements is a personal design choice. It has nothing to do with player input (to an extent). Unless it somehow actually caused all/most players to quit or hate the game, there's no overruling reason to change it. For now, this is the direction that the creators themselves want for the game, despite any negative feelings some players may have. The mere fact that those negative responders are still here is evidence enough that it's not a big deal and never has been. Some players will realistically be turned off by the game having such requirements, but so is the realistic approach that they quit because you have to actually level up, group with other players, pay a sub fee, and even the fact that the game may not have a certain race available to play. The reason a small collection of these potential players choose not to play is rarely a noteworthy matter.

[Talraen]

For anyone claiming that doing the MSQ doesn't help people do their jobs, ask yourselves in what dungeons you've seen a tank that literally doesn't even know what tanking is. For me, it's a steeply declining curve where 90% of the time it's in the first three dungeons (and usually Tam Tara for some reason), and it's never been later than Brayflox. I'm not talking about someone who was bad at tanking, I mean someone who literally doesn't even realize they're supposed to be taking the hits for the party.

The fact is, these people will never get beyond those dungeons until they learn to tank, or they switch to some other role. All that said, you can be a pretty incompetent DPS and get carried all the way to 60. But god - and anyone who had a DRK who never tanked before after HW - knows that requiring players to complete these dungeons is a skill check. A low skill check, but a check nonetheless.

A few people have suggested giving people some kind of training course in lieu of the main story. I'm actually fine with this idea - but instead of a "training course" people should just have to do every dungeon and trial required by the MSQ, sans story. And you should have to do your usual class quests as well, since those (theoretically) teach combat skills too.

On topic with the thread, though, new jobs should be available at level 30, regardless of story progression (or maybe requiring story progression to level 30 or below). There's no good reason to gate them behind all the filler quests.

Also, given how many people do hate the story, maybe they should add a "pre-emptively skip all cutscenes" for those people.

[Naunet]

For anyone claiming that doing the MSQ doesn't help people do their jobs, ask yourselves in what dungeons you've seen a tank that literally doesn't even know what tanking is. For me, it's a steeply declining curve where 90% of the time it's in the first three dungeons (and usually Tam Tara for some reason), and it's never been later than Brayflox. I'm not talking about someone who was bad at tanking, I mean someone who literally doesn't even realize they're supposed to be taking the hits for the party.

How is the story quest at all related to that? You get more experienced tanks in later dungeons because... they've had more time to learn their class in the earlier dungeons. That has nothing to do with the story quests at all. They never teach you anything but how to be an errand boy/girl and occasionally how to hit some mobs on your own.

[Yasuhiro]

So, can we expect this thread to be bumped when 4.0 comes close?

Nope but you can expect 100 more similar ones though.
Why can't we be more like the Japanese and keep everything in one thread? :c

[Kurogaea]

Best you get is skipping 2.x and 3.x quests with a AND THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED AFTERWARDS cutscene. But the main stories will always be necessary. It's a single player final fantasy game with multiplayer tacked on. BEst get used to it

Single player my butt. You can't even run through a dungeon alone without waiting for 3 other people because you alone are the Warrior of Light yet you rely on everyone around you to stay alive. This is a heavy multiplayer game with a single player story. Not only that, but if they actually allow players to go right into Bloodstorm that can open new story arcs for some players, instead of meeting Scions the normal way, you can actually be a native of Ala Mhigo, seeing how life was through their eyes when the garleans took over. Perhaps there's a resistance group within Ala Mhigo, and later on we meet the Scions. I'd actually start a new character just to experience that.