For stormblood do you want the gated conten path of hw, or the free roam path of arr?

[Kosmos992k]

This is a false comparison. ARR is the base game, you had free roam (as in you could walk/ride anywhere) as long as you could survive that area, because that was the game. Content such as dungeons was gated behind story and level requirements, as is normal. With Heavensward, it's an expansion to the base game, and you have to progress to Ishgard before you can travel anywhere else.

You *DO* actually have free roam in most Heavensward zones as long as you have been able to travel to Ishgard. Your travel otherwise is gated only by how brave you are at lvl 50 to roam higher level areas. But once again certain content such as dungeons and trials is story/level gated, as per normal for an RPG.

If you are referring to the gating of HW content by Steps of faith, that is a completely different question.

[Kaurie]

.__. I know. To me, saying four dungeons not being locked behind MSQ is - well look at everything else that is. Plus all the primals, sans Odin, were all locked behind MSQ, which vicariously meant, so were all the raids (as Coil required Garuda, Ifrit and Titan killed).

I'm sorry, I misread your post. I thought you said

"The only gates I can recall them having were:"

not

"The only gates I can recall them lifting were:"

[Squigley]

You *DO* actually have free roam as long as you have been able to travel to Ishgard. Your travel otherwise is gated only by how brave you are at lvl 50 to roam higher level areas..

Nope, the MSQ unlocks areas. You can't, for example, just run to Idyllshire after getting access to Ishgard.

[Kosmos992k]

Nope, the MSQ unlocks areas. You can't, for example, just run to Idyllshire after getting access to Ishgard.

I understand that, but once you unlock a zone, you can go anywhere in that zone you can reach on foot (until you can fly of course. I'm sorry, I was being less than precise in my reply. However, the OPs question is very ambiguous to me, free roam implyes being able to ramble all over the zones in the game. As far as I can see once you are in a HW zone, you can walk anywhere accessible on foot, as long as you can survive. Obvious exceptions being the ones you mention as they are gated behind story. In The Dravinian Forelands, you can get there pretty easily, but heaven help you if you're level 50-52 and try to walk along to the Gnath area or through Mourn. It's actually kind of fun sneaking around those areas when you're well below the level of the locals...

[JunseiKei]

Nope, the MSQ unlocks areas. You can't, for example, just run to Idyllshire after getting access to Ishgard.

^ This. Out of sheer curiosity, and because I hadn't tried to before, brought my ALT who is on the level 52 MSQ, toward the Hinterlands. Oh my, the gate is closed, despite me totally being able to get there on foot, ideally.

[bswpayton]

Kosmos992k accidently posted this to junseikei
This is what Im sayin which you just agreed with for instance free roam, so if your above level which is so easy to do with fates , guilds, duty roulette, and potd, you would easily be above level. In hw you cant get to dravinian forelands without the story. In arr you can go to any area thats in arr without story that opens fates, and optional dungeons. And with the level 50 portion of arr, you unlock like over half of the optional dungeons as soon as you open that part of the story. What Im saying is what if your level 65 in storm blood and want to do some of the optional dungeons that they put in place should you be forced to do the msq just to do a dungeon thats optional are should be you be able to do it whenever you get ready . The first optional dungeon in hw is gated dusk vigil , most people entering hw are already above level 50 so why is it gated behind msq , and like squigley said they wanted to just craft and gather its tons of players like this in the game why should areas be locked off from them if their gatherer is level 60 but maybe their battle class isnt if this is something they enjoy in the game. What Im saying is no area in arr was blocked from you , nor where any job quest, you could do all your job quest up to level 50 even if you are only level 30 in msq, hw gates this type of play and for no reason.

[JunseiKei]

I get what you're saying - you want to traverse the game without having context. Something ARR allows. The thing is ARR is mostly the same as it was in 1.0. Heavensward is completely new, with reasons you travel there and travel itself being new things for the "masses" story-wise. You're also an unwelcomed outsider, something still linked to the story. I get enjoying the story at your own pace, the game still has to obey what is acceptable lore-wise, which loops back to a post I made:

because in story, pacing is everything. A lot of the jobs in HW are linked to direct conflicts going on with the main story. After having concluded the Dragonsong War while still leveling alternate classes, you can see where events tie in directly. Events or key information that I now know as false but were heavily implied at the time the job quest was to be done, if it was your main, would keep to the story. This is pacing. Even in FFXIV is an MMO, it is still a Final Fantasy game which has always been about the story.

Everything you do in 3.0 is relevant to the story. Even so much as your job quests are heavily linked to the story, battle, crafter and gatherer alike. To skip ahead before you're meant to is akin to reading the ending/ solution to a conflict before you know what the conflict even is. It's all about pacing. While 4.0 might not see as much locking for traversing areas for some places, and you might not need flying to get around like you do in Heavensward, I'm sure there is still going to be a lot of MSQ gating. Lore-wise, it won't make sense how you're going to get around Imperial owned lands easily without having something from the story to it, so I doubt it.

[Aramina]

hw gates this type of play and for no reason.

I'd honestly keep said walls and gates because in story, pacing is everything. A lot of the jobs in HW are linked to direct conflicts going on with the main story. After having concluded the Dragonsong War while still leveling alternate classes, you can see where events tie in directly. Events or key information that I now know as false but were heavily implied at the time the job quest was to be done, if it was your main, would keep to the story. This is pacing. Even in FFXIV is an MMO, it is still a Final Fantasy game which has always been about the story.

You can disagree with the reason all you like, but what JunseiKei said *IS* the reason, so you can't say there is no reason. No reason you agree with? Perhaps. But that is not the same thing.

edit: I should have just let you speak for yourself instead of posting a quote from you earlier in the thread.

[bswpayton]

Being able to access some content without having done MSQ doesn't suddenly make it free roam. Four dungeons out of eleven others that .[/I]

But the thing is who is begging for more gates whos asking for their job quest to also be story locked , whos asking the devs to lock the jobs behind patches, I havent read a single thread on this. What I do hear being a mentor in the novice is new players wanting to play drk, astro , mch, and up until level 50 there was nothing I saw from those quest that made me feel like they had to be gated. Like I said by you forcing people to do the story to do everything then It could backfire and make them not interested in the game, like someone mention with crafters and the likes they just wana craft and maybe do the story later when they feel like it. I understand locking trails, and dungeons viva story. But jobs, job quest, and optional dungeons make zero sense at all because all it does is shorten a persons play time. Like I said gear max and collecting tomes isnt fun Ive heard noone say that is was from what Ive been reading. But I have heard many people defend the story do they play like I do probably not, but at the same time having that option imo would allow people to do these things without it being at the end of the game and still have something that they enjoy to look forward to. I dont want to be on the path of waiting every 3 months for more story when I can just do the story at my own pace and do the things that aren that exciting like farming gear in between the story that I love. Same goes for crafters and gatherers they love gathering so let people go get their stuff and once they finish then they will have even more pt by going back and doing the story later. Lore sometimes gets in the way of making the game last longer than it can this game is three years old so because of the locks it forces people to play in a way that that their is only one path and one path only, many new players always hate even leaving novice network and liked the community sense that the chat brought to the game, I believe if things wernt gated the way they were then alot more people would take more time to do things thus stretching out their subs , because they arent in a rush to do everything just to unlock stuff.

[Critical-Limit]

How about free roam starts with after beating heavensward because now you have all the scions. If you finish ARR, then go to storm blood you're gonna be like "wth? I thought they were all gone?"