Main Scenario Restriction Bloodstorm - Very Very Bad idea.

[Naunet]

To be honest, that applies to almost everything. Replace location names or terms relating to anything, and it can usually apply to something else. It's not a very strong argument for anything beyond stating a creative option. Though yeah, if the lore bit was the only reason for gating, it doesn't need to apply (though it's obviously not a big deal if it is).

Even MMOs like WoW have some form of gating in classes

When I said "change the location of the initial NPC", that is pretty much the ONLY change that would be required for the AST story. All of my story quests have been in ARR zones so far, learning nothing of Ishgardian astrology and everything of Sharlayan astrology.

The amount of time/work and tedious fetch-quest nonsense needed to get to HW content to unlock the three jobs there is on a completely different level from "have a level 70 in this ten+ year old MMO".

It may not be a big deal to you, but it IS a big deal to me. You don't need to try and speak for SE on this matter.

are Ishgardian in nature!

Ishgardian =/= Ishgard the city. The same issues that plague Ishgard are issues in the Ishgardian towns surrounding Coerthas.

[Derio]

Watch, people are going to complain about 3.4-3.55 patches

[Kurogaea]

Fighting games, and especially street fighter do this all the time. Don't have the latest version? You ain't playing with your friends. Perhaps surprisingly, these are all incredibly popular for the same reason.

Thats not what I meant. Your making it sound like I wanted White and Black players to be able to play with Sun and Moon players, THATS NOT IT. Its if one player in particular NEVER played White and Black, and now that he bought Sun and Moon he can't play with other Sun and Moon players. Get it now???

[Kurogaea]

not really tho because wit a jump potion their friends could do the same as well and play with them at the same level they are own , i saw threads about a possible pvp server so why not a jump potion server

Then go ask for that somewhere. No one asked for a jump server potion, especially since you'll most likely have to buy it off the mogstation in which we have a system for that. You clearly have no good reason as to why players shouldn't be able to skip old content to enjoy the newer content they intend to play after their purchase, and your not open for the option to do so, so I'm done talking about this with you.

[Istaru]

I'm starting to wonder if there is any point to discussing this anymore.

One side wants the MSQ requirements for things to die in a fire and anything less is completely unacceptable to them.

The other side wants it to stay but is at least willing to compromise in certain places.

[Kurogaea]

I'm starting to wonder if there is any point to discussing this anymore.

One side wants the MSQ requirements for things to die in a fire and anything less is completely unacceptable to them.

The other side wants it to stay but is at least willing to compromise in certain places.

I don't like either of those options. All I agreed to is players would be able to choose to skip to the new expansion content with a class of their choosing. I don't want the MSQs to die. Some players may just go back to experience them after they had plenty of fun with the expansion. People are flipping their heads over a simple option when it isn't hurting the game, if anything its actually helping. Not everyone will skip the story, but those who are drawn in for something specific or find the main story in the beginning not too interesting may find a better foundation in the newer expansion. Being open-minded goes a long way here.

[Neophyte]

When you're a new player, everything is relevant content. Again...
When you're doing content for the first time, it is always relevant.

It's not as if the MSQ would ask you to grind this content over and over everyday, that would be stupid and boring...which is exactly what "doing your roulettes at max level every day to gain tomestones" is !

And still 75% of all content with story is actually optional in regards reaching new expansion area.
Optional content with actual story in this game:
All side quests, PotD, ex primals (yes, they have interesting story, too), other trials (Odin, Hildibrand, Triad), half of all dungeons, fates, beast tribe quests, relic, even class/job quests, most GC related stuff and PvP, normal/savage/24-man raids (Coil+CT+Alex+Mhach story), levequests and guildheists, goldsaucer ('mandatory' story content in FF7, why not here? They could have made it so, that you have to visit Goldsaucer in HW MSQ to get a toy for some moogles. Missed opportunity?),....

Why are all those things allowed to be optional, but MSQ isn't? Are their story less worth it? Are they less important to learn the game? Are they in any way less important?

Usually in FF games it's 75% mandatory and only max. 25% optional story content.
Why did they do it the other way round here, when 'this is a FF game' comes first, 'this game is for people who love stories' comes second, while 'this is a MMORPG' isn't even considered by some of you.
There sure was never a FF game which demands me to lvl up my characters just to be able to talk to a specific NPC.. I have to be lvl 36 to do this fetch quest without a single fight involved? In a story-driven game? Why?

Why are MSQ stories gated behind lvl and ilvl (there are gaps 3-4 lvls between some MSQ)? Dungeons could have a story version to be able to solo them with lower than intended level. Would that be good? In terms of story quality: Yes, especially because the MSQ treats you as a lone wolf anyway.

When everything is new and fresh, why do you bother where someone starts? Why do you expect them to spam dungeon grind anytime soon, when there are so many different things to work on starting at 50 in HW area with ilvl 100-115 NQ.
ARR MSQ would still be at least a very long quest which could be helpful to lvl up one or two classes (but with armory bonus and actualy new released jobs) and therefore likely done by most of he players.. just not necessarily at first. It's importance only shrinks to the importance of every other same worth story content (i.e. all content).

Kurogaea nailed it: Be open-minded, not narrow-minded.

[Reynhart]

Why are all those things allowed to be optional, but MSQ isn't? Are their story less worth it? Are they less important to learn the game? Are they in any way less important?

I really feel like repeating myself over and over there...Why are they optionnal ? Because they're too challenging to force everyone to do them. Would you complain that doing the MSQ is too...challenging ?

And you're still taking it backwards. It's not that "those stories are optionnal duties so the game is not story based", but that "even optionnal duties have stories attached to them because the game put emphasis on stories". In a not-story based game, those duties would simply be "Go there, crawl".

Usually in FF games it's 75% mandatory and only max. 25% optional story content.

Yes...if you haven't played any FF after IX...did you try X with the training camp ? XII with the Hunts ? XIII and XIII-2 with the achievements ?

People are flipping their heads over a simple option when it isn't hurting the game, if anything its actually helping.

No, it fact, it is hurting the game. If you give options to skip a whole bunch of content, the Dev-Team won't make the same efforts to design them with lore and stories. And you'll have more and more complains about the lack of content. When a game is young, having little content is understandable. But, if a new player comes on the 4th expansion, and burn anything relevant in a month, of course he'll be pissed by having nothing else to do than dumb grinding. We've said before that the MSQ is relevant on itself, that first time run in dungeons are relevant. Adding a skip potion is an official way of saying "No, it is not relevant anymore".

In fact, it's like adding powerful items in the cash-shop. It would only be an option for some people, after all, and wouldn't change what you like in the game. But you bet it would destroy the community and the game.

[Lambdafish]

Why are MSQ stories gated behind lvl and ilvl (there are gaps 3-4 lvls between some MSQ)? Dungeons could have a story version to be able to solo them with lower than intended level. Would that be good? In terms of story quality: Yes, especially because the MSQ treats you as a lone wolf anyway.

Alright, I will try to be reasonable in your line of thinking and actually try to answer your question (as much as you are less asking and I'm reading it as "This is wrong because I don't want it").

Firstly, you need to split MSQ in half, we have the expansion MSQ, and we have patch MSQ, which are two different things, and for the sake of arguement we will ignore patch MSQ for now. Expansion MSQ is gated for 2 reasons. The first is to gate zones and to give character progression to the MSQ as a whole, and the second is because the entire point of the leveling process is to have the MSQ at its core, with story dungeons and trials being unlocked over the course of the story, getting progressively harder. This is how the game is designed at a core level and cannot be changed without a significant rethink of the entire structure of the game, and no, that's not something that we want.

Essentially what it comes down to is that the story is the primary meat of the game when it comes to the expansion, it is the context of the players personal adventure, and anything not relevant to it (side stories, raid, gold saucer) are secondary, which is why they are not mandatory. By making the MSQ optional, the story suddenly becomes much worse because it must be self contained and meaningless (like alexander felt), the world cannot change because it adds so many variables of context.

We are not being narrow minded, we know the implications of what you are asking. We are willing to compromise, yes a lot of MSQ is irrelevant, especially in 2.x, but the development team have vastly reduced the amount of fluff in 3.x for this exact reason.

I'll put some spoiler tags to show existing plot points that will make no sense in stormblood if you never did the MSQ

The griffin has Nidhoggs eyes, this does not make sense if the player never beat Nidhogg

The ascians plot has been constant throughout the 2 expansions and context is needed to further their plot - some of them being dead for example

The state of hydaelyn, as well as the information we know about her has changed vastly throughout the story, this will be relevant in stormblood

What you are essentially asking for is for a way to skip from chapter 1 to chapter 10, and then ask for someone to explain the story to you because you don't understand it. What our compromise is is that we know that filler arcs can be skipped.

To add... a short summary cutscene is not enough to provide adequate context for 2 expansions worth of story.

[Neophyte]

edit: :P /10char