Jump Potion...again

[Voltyblast]

If they get rid the story requirements, we don't need a jump potion.

"B-b-but it's a Final Fantasy, it has to have a story, or else why are you even playing it?!"

Ok in all seriousness here, I don't think we should get rid of the story: even if I dislike it for various reasons I just don't think that removing a story from the game is a good choice: it helps guiding new players and gives some sort of context of your action, which is always nice. The problem is how this game locks content behind it which, in all honesty here, was done beyond badly, almost like an excuse.

Think of the usual single player RPG: there are locked session where you have to go further before unlocking the next one, but it's usually done for several design reasons such as guiding the player without making him get lost and balancing the difficulty through out the entire game (or would you like to get 1 shotted from a lvl 99 enemy?)

However an MMORPG has it differently: the game is about freedom and how you want to play said game. This also works for open world games really: would you still play GTA5 if to unlock, say, car driving you had to do 10 hours of story mode? I know the comparison is faulty but my point is pretty much that, if you want to make a MMORPG, a game about open world and free exploration, the first priority is to be free to play as you want. Locking EVERYTHING behind a story that some people might not even care, yet you must do, is just not healthy.

Besides 1.0 is just here to remind us that an MMORPG can't survive on story and plot alone!

But my opinion about this? They did it on purpose so that they'll sell the potion: why spend resources on overhauling a flawed content lock system when they can use said flaw at their advantage and use it to tire new players outs from the 500 quests they must do? Basically thanks to the MSQ, these new players either will leave because they don't like the story or simply don't like how the system work, or pay the potion so that they can FINALLY join their friends and play like they should've done from the beginning.

Sure, some will stay and attempt to follow all of it, but when we're in 5.0, with nearly 1000 quests to do that are mandatory, I can guarantee that even the most patient person in the world will give up and go for the detour.

[LineageRazor]

Ok in all seriousness here, I don't think we should get rid of the story: even if I dislike it for various reasons I just don't think that removing a story from the game is a good choice: it helps guiding new players and gives some sort of context of your action, which is always nice. The problem is how this game locks content behind it which, in all honesty here, was done beyond badly, almost like an excuse.

Yeah, this is the real problem, and I've said as much in other threads. It was a terrible idea to lock pretty much everything behind the Main Scenario. MSQ should be something you can do at your leisure while enjoying other parts of the game. The fact that SE also decided to make MSQ one, long, continuing storyline from expansion to expansion only makes the problem so much worse; each expansion adds another hundred or so quests to slog through before you can reach endgame, and even folks who ENJOY the storyline are likely to feel intimidated by it. Heavensward embraced this philosophy and took it to an extreme - you can't even enter the expansion without finishing all the vanilla MSQ, and once you get there all but two of the expansion zones are inaccessible until you progress through MSQ.

There should be plenty of endgame content that is NOT locked behind MSQ, but this is not the case - and the endgame that IS locked behind it seems very arbitrary at times. There's no reason you shouldn't have access to Coil from the moment Alisae strikes out on her own. The only thing plotwise preventing Alexander is the presence of a certain Scion (whose role in the story is pretty minor, to be honest, and could easily have been filled by another NPC); aside from that, they could have had Alex lurch out of the lake pretty much the moment you set foot in the Hinterlands.

It may take a significant overhaul to fix this mess, but I think that overhaul would be preferable to adding jump potions. Make the storyline optional; maybe add some cool rewards for completing it. (Though, to be fair, "cool rewards" are a tough prospect in a vertical progression game like this, as any gear reward will quickly become obsolete, limiting us to fluff rewards like minions and mounts.) In giving players the means to simply skip it all, I find it all too likely that many players who might enjoy the story will feel pressured to do so in order to reach endgame swiftly - and then later regret their choice and wish they could actually go back and see the events that lead up to it.

Did not get that but english not being my mother tongue I might have done a lexical mistake ?

Some players REALLY dislike the use of the term "toon" to describe player characters in this game, both because this game goes to great lengths to make the characters NOT look cartoony, and also because it's a term commonly used by WoW players, and many here do not like to compare this game to that.

[Yasuhiro]

"B-b-but it's a Final Fantasy, it has to have a story, or else why are you even playing it?!"

Why do you have to be condescending about it? That's exactly what this game is, a mainline Final Fantasy game with online tacked on the bottom
I don't like the story either, I think it's got bad pacing, forgettable characters, god awful localization for the north American release (If I have to hear succor one more time)but I knew what I was getting into when I joined around 2.4

[Voltyblast]

Why do you have to be condescending about it?

Because people don't seem to understand priorities anymore. Yes this is a "mainline Final Fantasy game", but as a GAME the most important thing is the GAMEPLAY, which is constantly locked behind STORY. STORY and GAMEPLAY can coexist, we have seen games doing this perfectly and we even have a good comparison for the MMORPG genre (SWTOR), but in this game the MSQ is an issue because of how it's implemented, as it constantly and purposedly locks major and minor features behind it, including an entire expansions. And this is unhealthy for the population's.

I mean even normal rpgs have less locking issues than this game does!

As for me, I'll keep skipping because I simply dislike how the story is written and told, and as I said I don't really want it to be removed: I still think that a "campaign" mode helps to guide players and it can be helpful. But this game's story mode is not even close to that because it keeps locking everything. I mean really, why do I have to wait lvl 50 for unlocking glamour? Why can't I use my vet reward mount before I join those GC? Why can't I just go anywhere before said story tells me so? Why can't pvp just be red vs blue instead of having 3 factions all the time?! (And yes I've been told a lot of times that the lore has nothing to do with it, but a hindrance remains an hindrance). Why, what, why?!

In any case, the way they're keeping the content lock will do no good in the nearby future, especially when in 2-3 expansions they have 2000 quests JUST to access the new area. I'll just want to see how that excuse will help.

[TaranTatsuuchi]

...
I mean really, why do I have to wait lvl 50 for unlocking glamour?
Why can't pvp just be red vs blue instead of having 3 factions all the time?!
...

I am also annoyed at the level requirement for glamor.



Comparing a 3 faction vs 2 faction pvp system...
In some cases, a 2 faction system can get lopsided with the amount of people on one side.
A 3 faction system can allievate that, allowing the two 'weaker' factions to team up and even the odds.

I don't actually have experience with ffxiv's pvp, but I'm not sure how well, if at all, that benefit of a 3 faction system works here....

[Frowny]

A 3 faction system can allievate that, allowing the two 'weaker' factions to team up and even the odds.

The ideal doesn't happen often. What ends up happening is the 2 fight each other while the top team skates by.