Main Scenario Restriction Bloodstorm - Very Very Bad idea.

[RhaesDaenys]

Its actually really common. I know half my friends would pay to skip to the new expansion if they could, but they're lazy and wouldn't stick with the game.

[Neophyte]

Its actually really common. I know half my friends would pay to skip to the new expansion if they could, but they're lazy and wouldn't stick with the game.

And "half of my friends" (yada yada) would join this game and sub periodically, if they feel they want to play a bit FF14 or are intersted in new additions.
They're old MMORPG vets and only want a regular occupation (like playing 4-8h a week challenging content together with their friends which whom they play other games as well) without commiting much time to just be able to play this game.
They just don't join, because it would take them 150+h to even reach the point to do the things their 7 other friends already do. Some of them did already play on my PC and did some fights and are capable of playing this game at an average level in endgame or at least they're able to learn much faster than the MSQ teaches you, so they are not interested in "learning" this game for 150h first.

Sorry for you, that you only have lazy and undedicated friends. :/

And again, I don't get it... either your friends don't join this game at all or they do join and (maybe) stop after not that long. How is the first option ("won't join at all") in any way better than the second one ("would join, but maybe not stick that long").

That doesn't convince me the slightest. First, it's in no way game-breaking if there are some people joining and not staying long. It's the other way round: X buddies of you would likely pay 30 day Sub + the MSQ jump, instead of not giving any money to FF14 at all in their lifetime.
Second, I just refer to one of the main arguments of the "no MSQ skip pls" faction: Almost everyone who wants to pick this game up is interested in FF stories.
So, no: The people interested in skipping the MSQ can't be common.
It's more likely that it's MMORPG vets, who are already familiar with the endgame Systems and definitly know that they want to skip the MSQ, because they know what exactly to expect out of it.
It's not likely that the average player does that. The "average player" who didn't get in touch with FF14 yet, doesn't know and doesn't care mostly about the X-Pacs anyway.
They can't classify it properly: e.g. A new player can't say if PotD is good content compared with all the other content, because he never did any content so far. So it's likely that there are almost no new players who want to skip to PotD right away. The same logic counts for skipping to the Expansion: How should he know that he actually wants to skip to the expansion? He can't.

There is no big ammount of "not yet FF14 Players" who are desperatly waiting for SB to come out, so they finally have a reason (what new reason occured pls?!) to buy this game and then get disappointed when they can't start with SB right away.
Just look at heavensward, it was the same there... there were people complaining that you had to do MSQ, but that was because of the same reasons as above: They knew people not interested in story, but interested in the game itself and wanting to play it regulary with their friends. Or they wanted to create alts. Or they just did want a specific job available (which could have be approached in a different way, like making the AST available in Coerthas Central astrology Tower).

Never ever I read the complain "I am a new player. I never played this game before and have no experience in any aspect of the game. I want to start with the HW MSQ (it's not about the gated jobs), but have to do the ARR MSQ first. I don't want to do that."

Because it is not common.

[NatSilverguard]

Its actually really common. I know half my friends would pay to skip to the new expansion if they could, but they're lazy and wouldn't stick with the game.

tell your friends to stay away, we don't want more lazy people here. o7

[Annah]

it would be a very bad idea for folks who never went through the main story quest to skip it.

It's not a big deal to go through the quests. When I came back for heavensward i missed a lot of content but it only took me a couple days to get to Steps of Faith. It really isn't that bad.

I think people just want to have handmeouts.

This game is so story driven you dont want a handmeout when it comes to skipping the story.

That's like watching a movie and you skip to the endish because you dont want to watch the middle content...if you never seen that movie before...yeah, good luck trying to understand and even enjoy it

[Mimiru_S]

If new players want to skip the MSQ, fine, go for it... However, that should mean they get no story, at all. If you don't want to do the MSQ then you have to rely only on side quests, from 1-70.

[Blazinhart]

Skip stuffs and you lose stuffs.

The whole leveling, learning and knowing the world of FFXIV is made from the beginning. People who ask to go to end-game so fast without doing main scenario and leveling their first class from the beginning seems to me that they don't care about the story and how it develops through evolution. The story and characters are so rich, after all it's Final Fantasy!
Even if you don't care about the story and just wanna level up to end-game, you need to do from the beginning, otherwise we will get dumb Tanks and Healers who don't know how to play their roles! That's my opinion.

[Annah]

Skip stuffs and you lose stuffs.

The whole leveling, learning and knowing the world of FFXIV is made from the beginning. People who ask to go to end-game so fast without doing main scenario and leveling their first class from the beginning seems to me that they don't care about the story and how it develops through evolution.

And those people who wants to skip everything and go straight to the end are ALWAYS to the first to whine and complain about end game content.

My FFXIV Philosophy is this: enjoy the story. It really is worth it. Even the Lorebook I just bought adds even more character and life the stories that has unfolded.

[Blazinhart]

And those people who wants to skip everything and go straight to the end are ALWAYS to the first to whine and complain about end game content.

My FFXIV Philosophy is this: enjoy the story. It really is worth it. Even the Lorebook I just bought adds even more character and life the stories that has unfolded.

Totally agree with you! And I'm crazy to get the Lorebook, but it seems impossible for now (sold out too fast, and too expensive for me - I'm from Brazil) But I know I will get it sometime

[Neophyte]

Wow, people really don't like factual arguments, instead make simplistic assumptions about the unworthy and disgusting personality of persons who would skip. Awesome.

May I, too?
I think people who deny other people to skip, because they either think that those players would be too bad to be allowed to play or think that someone not doing/liking MSQ isn't allowed to do endgame just for the sake of it, are entitled wanna-be-elitists who apparently struggle to learn simplest game mechanics unless they are babysitted for 150h+.

or

People saying they play this game for the story usually are some of the worst players skillwise. It's more important to them to see the story than to get proper gear or learn a proper rotation. Also they don't like redoing old content and only do roulettes to be able to progress in MSQ. They rather play alone than together with friends. Therefore they aren't much of a gain for the community.

Is this a proper discussion?

There are 4 pillars touching a buyable 'skip MSQ' option:
1) Content quality; will remain, since most FF players demand good quality stories.

2) Content quantity; will remain, since most FF players demand good quality stories; most FF players demand additional stories for optional content

3) Player quality; can be alleviated with mandatory battle content gating harder content, i.e. Battle Grounds/Hall of Novice/beginner dungeons. E.g skipping the MSQ, but still having to do the mandatory MSQ dungeons is a compromiss adressing this issue.
Also the limiting factor on player skill is a mix of will to learn, the need to learn and time commitment to do that. If you don't want to you never git gud just because of MSQ. As said before, the 'hard' dungeons of ARR are optional anyway.
And there is also the thing that after doin 150h of ez pz content a player likely adapted a bad playstyle which he has to unlearn in endgame first, before learning to play his job properly anyway. Only endgame prepares one for endgame skillwise.
Most of my friends who play regulary and never touched FF yet but other MMORPGs could beat Sophia Ex, if I let them practise, gave them gear and 1-2h rotation advice in easier content, and then let them do Sophia itself... i guess less than 1 day and it's dead.
And even if I exaggerate her, the hard mode at least and Alexander normal raid, too... and that's also endgame content. More is not demanded, there a thousands of story lovers who don't do ex content or are not able to beat it, too.

4) Player quantity; will likely rise. Maybe some people will leave just for the sake of making a statement. But that are most likely those people described in my insult-paragraph anyway, so this is a positive thing, too.

[Zojha]

Even if you don't care about the story and just wanna level up to end-game, you need to do from the beginning, otherwise we will get dumb Tanks and Healers who don't know how to play their roles! That's my opinion.

Shouldn't we, then, gate HW behind doing coil with minimum iLvL sync, rather than the main story? That would make sure only the people who know what they are doing would get to endgame, much unlike fetch quests.

Not sure how many people who currently ARE at endgame would fall out with such a restriction, tho...I wager quite a few!