Naoki Yoshida's Comment in Regard to Jump Potions/Boost Potions

[Aristotle]

Not a fan of this for reasons everyone's already stated, but after helping two friends get through all of ARR and HW, I can see why it's a "necessary evil". I guess we'll just have to see how it goes.

[Fuyuzora]

Do you even play this game? If you do i guess you kick/try to kick alot.
Like 4 of 5 players cant handle there class "properly", with or without potions, it doesn't change anything.
But it doesn't even matter due to content difficulty.

you must come along with alot of bad people if you asume this
but i do kick bad people and since we are usually atleast 2 pre-made its easy to kick the bad ones

[Roth_Trailfinder]

Ahem. They have to do this eventually. The game will be too long that no sane newcomer will play through to current levels. Best to get it over with now and deal with the fallout

Eventually .. .when the game is a good decade old, or older. Its *TOO SOON* in the game's lifespan.

This really should be something considered AFTER server consolidations to maintain viable population levels.

There are two things to having a healthy game population. First, is attracting people. There are only so many people on Earth interested in MMO's, so the total pool of potential players, is finite. The more you can get to try your game, the more you can get to see if they like it, right?

The other part is more important, and that is keeping existing players playing. Jump potions as described only serve to run through that potential pool of players faster, as does going FTP. Neither one actually encourage people to keep playing, at best they simply cease discouraging people from continuing to play.

As a Mentor, I can see how many people are in the NN on my server. For that matter, anyone can do a Player Search to see how many Sprouts there are on their server at that time. Combine that with the downward trend of the (incomplete, because they are not SE) server census data that gets released every now and then, and I have to wonder why they are trying to attract new players rather than reattract AND KEEP old/existing players. I do a Player Search right now and I get a total of 478. Of those 127 are sprouts, and of those sprouts, only 9 stand out as obvious bots, based on their name or FC. Now, Player Search will not show those who are in instances, so there are going to be more Total Players and more Sprouts ... but the proportion that are Sprouts suggests that new players are not the issue, its keeping the old ones.

[Tropa]

Don't really see the big problem, usually when I get a class to 60, I have to relearn the rotation and make efficient use of all the new skills I've gotten(Black Mage is a good example of this).

I'll be sure to use the potion on Red Mage if possible, going through the same leveling grind again can be a pretty big turn off.

[HyoMinPark]

Even after discussing these potions at length with my friends last night on Discord, and sleeping on it, I still disagree with the job potions.

I can see the need for story skip ones once we start reaching future expansions (5.0, 6.0, and so on). I think a better alternative would be allowing for the skipping of 2.x, 3.x, 4.x, etc., and completing at least the base game, and the original expansion patches. Allow for a "short movie" recap of the between-expansion storylines (kind of like one of those "Please set aside a decent amount of time to view these cutscenes" ordeal you see in 2.55, and in some other patches). That way, people can skip playing through the between-expansion patches, and they can even skip the mini-movie as well, if they so please. But just allowing for the entire skipping of a story (one these devs put a lot of effort into), just seems backwards in a game that pushes the story so much.

I still can't get behind job potions. People don't want to hear slippery slope arguments, but that doesn't change that the potential is still there. Where do the potions end? Do the potions lead to more potions? OP buffs? I still feel like those are valid concerns, and they concern me. I'm not trying to use them to strength any arguments; they're my valid concerns, and reasons why I don't like the job potions. And I sincerely hope my concerns are misplaced. I hope the cash shop stops with these potions.

And, so what if the gear isn't "current expansion raid-tier gear?" It's still handed to the individual who can speak with their wallet, and requires no effort to get other than a few keystrokes and a credit card number. And gives new players that can shell out the money for them a distinct advantage over the new players who can't. Not to mention there doesn't appear to be limits set for these job potions. So an individual can just buy all their jobs 10 levels away from cap. I don't know. That's just unsettling to me. I don't expect people to play this game the way I do, but being able to just buy all your jobs?

Yoshi-P says this is a way for friends to invite new players, and for new players to catch up with their friends. He's already catering these potions towards new players, not those with alternative characters. And I don't understand what's stopping a player from helping their new friend through their first run of Haukke Manor, or helping them with Dusk Vigil or Final Steps of Faith. What stops you from doing so?

And why are people so eager to reach this mythical endgame? Aside from those that raid, I feel like endgame is mostly just a chore list of stuff: cap tomes, run roulettes, run roulettes to cap tomes, etc., rinse and repeat next Thesday. New players so excited to reach endgame, I feel, may end up disappointed by the lack of endgame content in this game. And then proceed like those that didn't jump their way to endgame: AFK in whatever expansion's version of Mor Dhona/Idyllshire, and then eventually just unsub until the next patch. Or not even come back at all. Without more stuff to do at endgame, these potions won't keep subscribers. Not if those that jump end up as bored as some of the players at endgame already.

I know they tested this is Korea, but I still think it's important to consider that different player bases will react and utilize these potions different. So the Korean players seem to use it mostly for Alts. That doesn't mean that the NA player base will, especially since the main argument for them by Yoshi-P is "Catch Up Easily With Your Friends!" Already they are catered towards new players. I feel like a lot of people in NA, at least, like doing the minimal amount of work they can to reap the same rewards of those who work hard (this is just generally speaking, not related to FFXIV). Advertising potions that basically do all but current-tier things for you seems very appealing to someone who is lazy, or who doesn't want to put the time or effort into such things.

I know bad players will continue to be bad, potion or no potion. But since these potions have the potential to appeal to lazy players, I wonder if said lazy players will bother to even attempt to learn their jobs after using them. Still kind of concerned about what this will do to Duty Finder, which I feel can be pretty unbearable already. Hopefully I am wrong here too.

Idk. I'm not wanting to argue with the people in this thread anymore, especially those who just want to argue either for the sake or it, or because they disagree with my viewpoint on these things. I don't expect people to agree with me. But I won't be called stupid just because I disagree with the potions. I just wanted to get my thoughts down again after sleeping on it, and thinking about the potions more. They probably don't make sense, but. Here they are.

[Remus]

snip

Community...
They are thinking about the community why do you think they made this post? They are explaining it to you so you understand what it does and how it would be implemented. It's not the game or the companies fault they you think it's "poison". It all comes down to the community and how they go about it. You can't blame the company for it when it's the players doing it themselves. Instead of the community kicking people why not just tell that new player what to do.

Also if I have to be honest I really don't see it happening when people say they will kick people I bet people just use it to "threaten" the company into not adding it the same as when people say they will quit and not end up doing it. If people kick due to jump potions it would not surprise me that will be a bannable offense eventually if people keep doing it due to leveling potions because that will start to go into the category of harassment.

Real friends
Yes, real friends may go back but then I can bet it will get to the point where they want to experience the expansion they bought and I can bet friends can't always be helping someone because then they won't progress and and i'm sure people like progressing. No one is saying you need to use it its called an option.

No one is pushing them to get the potion. Like the OP said it is a option if you want to be with your friends straight away you don't need to use it. They also showed data of how many people used the potion and most people that used it has played online games before or played till about level 30 (the trial cap). Also the percentage of people that used it was only 27%-29% which isn't all that much.

We never had thread asking for jump potions

You would be surprised how many people don't post topics on the official forum. Have you been following Yoshi-p everywhere he goes? He even said at one point in a interview during conventions that people told him he should have had a jump potion option for HW due to the lengthy quest chains before and it really turned them off form it. The official forums isn't the only place they get feedback. There are conventions, reddit, interviews, big fan sites(there are quite a few in JP) just a few from the top of my head. I can bet much more people use reddit than hang around the official forums.

Solution
The community won't be ruined. You seem to think that from some of the official forums responses is the majority of players. The official forums a only a handful of how many people who play FF. Most games that have jump potions (GW2,SWTOR,WoW) are still doing fine and these are the popular ones. They also went through the phase of everyone saying "oh the community will be toxic etc etc" then after a month everything went back to normal and it shows people just over react.

I am just getting really tired of reading some of the hyperbole people are throwing around and it's quite annoying. I'm not saying you can't disagree with it, but if you are going to disagree at least give a good reason for it and not short response which don't offer much feedback.

snip.

See this? This is what I expect when it comes to disagreeing because it seems more thought out and I can actually understand where they are coming from when they give examples and discussed it with other people. So even though I agree with adding jump potions I will still like the post purely for giving good feedback.

[Coulvre]

Personally I'm glad these are being included. Whilst I'm up-to-date enough that I wouldn't buy one myself, I know several people who have been put off playing or continuing this game because they felt like they were too far behind. I feel like any potential issues have been addressed in the original post, backed up with actual statistics about the people who have currently bought and used the items in different regions. Whilst I know that the international MMO market is different, I'm not still not really worried.

I think it's unlikely that someone would drop the money on the game, a sub, and the jump boost potion if there were not serious about playing, and I'm all for making the game accessible and keeping it alive regardless of players' exact skill level.

Also, considering that the battle system is going to be heavily altered for Stormblood, existing players are also going to need to adjust to playing in a new way regardless... especially if they pick up a new job.

[SpookyGhost]

You can't blame the company for it when it's the players doing it themselves.

Just popping in to say this is a bad argument - the company (more specifically to XIV, Yoshi-P's team) facilitate whatever the community does. It's like putting in open world PvP and then when the players start griefing you going "yeah but it wasn't the dev's fault, it's the community's!". If some bad thing is happening in the community using or "misusing" a feature it is the direct result of an oversight by the devs, one that can and should be addressed by them and not just passed off as "well the community is toxic" or whatever.

[SquashingFrogs]

My primary gripe is that no one should be able to purchase multiple classes near or at the level cap it should be limited to ONE per account. I personally have no interest in people's skill level the game has plenty of high and low skilled players as it is, if you're going to be good at a game you will do the research and practice, being boosted is irrelevant, it depends on individual goals and aspirations.

Plenty of people have leveled every class to maximum including professions and amongst them, I have several friends who wear it like a badge of honor it is their accomplishment in their eyes perhaps one of their greater achievements. I aspire to achieve the same goal, this is why I hate the idea of people being able to throw money at your feet and be handed it on a plate anyone with the incentive will just throw money at you and take everything to 60 negating any effort. and nullifying the accomplishments of other hard working players as they will now be indistinguishable.

[SquashingFrogs]

I hope in reading through this forum you can already visibly see the divide between players that is forming at the mere suggestion of a Jump potion.

This isn't something to my knowledge the Western player base has asked for we're happy to work towards our goals and many of us play within established FC's where we are more than happy to backtrack to help our friends. the reality is I see no legitimate reason for this Microtransaction having read your post you barely scrape the surface of the potential negative impacts but list the majority of the benefits. overall I feel this is a scapegoat transaction it saves you time tweaking adjusting and designing [re-designing] pre-existing or new content to allow new players a gateway into the game and instead defers instant gratification for a price.