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

[Naunet]

I have to admit I am 100% for the story skip potions. One of the downfalls of this game the ungodly amount of quest fodder they shove in your face just to progress the story.

They shouldn't ask us to shell out money for ARR and Heavensward only to turn around and make people pay additional to "fix" what they have publicly acknowledged is an extremely boring part of the game.

They need to suck it up and fix things so that all unlocks are no longer tied to the MSQ - that way players can level up however they wish and are not forced into the narrow funnel of the MSQ. Charging to get around their acknowledged flaws is nothing but an awful money grab.

Its not SE who loses out if they go back and fix the old quests. Its us established players. The money, workers and resources spent to fix those old quests will come out of what we get. That means less for us.

You need to let this argument go. Spending a bit of time to fix a MAJOR problem that DOES actually discourage people from returning to the game (or picking it up at all) is WELL worth SE's time. Stop being selfish and stop trying to making assertions about specific things we'd "lose", because you have zero actual evidence.

The story skip potions do not help us. They benefit SE financially but they are in no way a reasonable fix for players. What's more, they even give SE a financial incentive to NEVER fix things. That is not good for us.

it hasn't anything to do with the quality of the game in this case, simply the progression path of story and gating of systems.
FFXIV is EXTREMELY story centric so every new feature or unlock is done via quests, usually the main one. The only way you unlock most dungeons is by doing the main story quests.
The problem here is that even if you power level to max level, you still have to go back and do every.single.quest in the main story, as well as class quests to unlock things.
Secondarily is the fact that you can play all classes on the same character; meaning once you exhaust quests, you're stuck with 1-2 very repetitive processes to level, that in some cases is worse than alt-ing in wow.

So we're going to accept them CHARGING us for a mistake they made when they are perfectly capable of repairing it in other ways? We all know what the problem is - the length of the ARR MSQ, filler quests, and how it walls off everything behind unlocks. We should be demanding SE actually fix the problem, instead of asking us to shell out even more money.

Honestly? I'm glad they are using this approach instead of trimming the MSQ. It would be bad for people who'd like to experience the story again with a new character a few expansions/years down the line.

They don't even have to "trim" the MSQ. They just need to extract its claws from all of the content it unlocks. Let players go through the MSQ if they want at their own pace, but don't wall off the entire game with it.

[VTXShiva]

- Snip-

Hindsight is a powerful thing indeed.
Yes they made a mistake. I also think that having so much of the game gated behind one such long quest chain was a bad decision, and for the most part they have tried to move away from it little by little. It's just something that happens when you play a story-driven game. It's what drew most people into this game in the first place; but it is also something that is keeping many new people away.
Thing is there are solutions, some short term, other long term, some cost little, some cost more.
Your post seems to want everything and give nothing. Don't spend money, don't give them the time, but fix it now and the expensive and time-consuming way. And yes it would take a gosh darn long time and resources to un-link and re-adjust all those quests. FWIW i'm speaking out of actual experience.

[Lambdafish]

Hindsight is a powerful thing indeed.

Except there ARE alternative methods that are able to be implemented other than a jump potion.

They don't even have to "trim" the MSQ. They just need to extract its claws from all of the content it unlocks. Let players go through the MSQ if they want at their own pace, but don't wall off the entire game with it.

I wrote this list a few dozen pages back that shows exactly what can be done to have those claws extracted AND the MSQ trimmed, I'm sure you could reply with even more ideas.

Some proposed solutions that make levelling potions unnecessary:

A) like palace of the dead, make more content accessible at low levels (meaning that new players can play current "endgame" content with friends immediately)

B) make the new jobs accessibility requirements only to finish the 2.0 story (beat praetorium) and have them outside the expansion area. (Reason being is that this is the point you become the WoL).

C) allow crafters and gatherers to enter the expansion areas through beating their class quests (This would actually make accessing the expansion zones FAR easier)

D) Make the storyline of 3.4/3.5 separate from 3.1-3.3 (a little message saying these events take place after the events of the dragonsong war with a tiny summary of the ascians, WoD and nidhoggs eye)

E) Make ONLY 2.1-2.55 skippable, these quests are much easier to translate into a summary than the entire story from 2.0-3.55, and coupled with D) will make the story much shorter if people choose to.

[Naunet]

Your post seems to want everything and give nothing. Don't spend money, don't give them the time, but fix it now and the expensive and time-consuming way. And yes it would take a gosh darn long time and resources to un-link and re-adjust all those quests. FWIW i'm speaking out of actual experience.

Then you didn't actually read my post.

Where do you see me not wanting to give them time? And I'm spending money - I bought the game when it launched and bought HW and continue a sub. What I DON'T think is okay is for them to ask US to pay even more to bypass an issue that they should take responsibility for fixing. Should the story skip potion go through, I can pretty much guarantee you that they will never re-examine the ARR content that they've admitted is not fun.

They've got plenty of time to fix things. I don't even care if it's all fixed by Stormblood, but I sure as heck would prefer an honest effort to begin repairs (and structure Stormblood in such a way that it does not continue the problem) over potion cash grabs.

I wrote this list a few dozen pages back that shows exactly what can be done to have those claws extracted AND the MSQ trimmed, I'm sure you could reply with even more ideas.

Great suggestions. For E, I presume 2.1-2.55 encompasses all the post-50 ARR story, right? I'm horrible at keeping track of patch numbers. xD

I don't think you should have to finish the 2.0 story to access new jobs, though. They should be accessible as soon as you hit level 30 - similar to how rogue/ninja unlocks when you get any class to level 15.

To your list, I would add that all dungeons should unlock in the same way as the side dungeons - or, so that SE doesn't have to add any new quests, just have the currently-MSQ-tied dungeons unlock automatically in the dungeon finder when you reach the appropriate level.

[NolLacnala]

94 Pages and no one has considered that the level potion is almost not needed at all?

It's not needed. I work full time but still have six alts that are ilevel 240+, most of which were created later on in Heavensward after I capped every job and crafter on my main. In China, it's functional because they pay by the hour to play in shops/cafes, on top of their subscriptions. Here? It's just a Call of Duty kiddy instant gratification enabler to get four months of sub plus purchase out of players who won't stick around for more than a few weeks.

Many also play sub MMOs to avoid credit card swiper heroes.

[VTXShiva]

Except there ARE alternative methods that are easily implemented other than a jump potion.

Almost all your suggestions revolve around changing hooks, NPC locations event triggers, etc. These things are not so easily done as you think. You don't just move NPCs and triggers from A to B; sometimes that works, but not always.
In order to be done right (not half-assed) this would take considerable resources from at least 1/3rd of the XIV team and anywhere from 1-2 patch cycles to half an expansions worth of time, or potentially more.
No it would not require the input of all departments, but the people needed to address these things altogether would significantly slow the content patches regardless.

The jump potions are a super easy/fast solution in contrast. It just flips the switch on several values from 0 to 1, but more importantly is already done and would require little to no testing to implement.
Cost almost 0, reward instantly noticeable.

[Naunet]

Cost almost 0, reward instantly noticeable.

Cost to the playerbase: a game that no longer has the motivation to improve, plus the cost of a potion.

Stop cheerleadering for SE. Improving on the game they built is part of their JOB.

[Cedane]

Well I, for one, welcome it. I saw what Naoki Yoshida wrote and I'm for it. I could see myself using it for some classes and then running POTD to get a feel before even daring to run it through dungeons/raids/etc.

This is a story driven game. You can't trim it without effecting the story. I'm sure they did weigh the options pointed out but opted for this. I'm not bothered by it in the least. It means some of my friends who were turned off and refused to play can play with me now.

Sooo... I'm going to wait and see how it works in effect. If it DOES do the doom and gloom people are screaming about? Then point it out and they can fix it. I'm not going to worry for a what if scenario when the darn potions haven't been implemented yet. I think a lot of you should calm down, try to wait and see how it works first when they are implemented into the game itself.

Don't panic. Wait for numbers and results of the jump potions to come in. Witness the pros and cons in full form and see how the results play out in the next few months. In my personal opinion, I don't think its any harm at all and feel people are overreacting just a tad bit much.

It's going to be okay guys!

[Imoen]

Almost all your suggestions revolve around changing hooks, NPC locations event triggers, etc. These things are not so easily done as you think. You don't just move NPCs and triggers from A to B; sometimes that works, but not always.
In order to be done right (not half-assed) this would take considerable resources from at least 1/3rd of the XIV team and anywhere from 1-2 patch cycles to half an expansions worth of time, or potentially more.
No it would not require the input of all departments, but the people needed to address these things altogether would significantly slow the content patches regardless.

The jump potions are a super easy/fast solution in contrast. It just flips the switch on several values from 0 to 1, but more importantly is already done and would require little to no testing to implement.
Cost almost 0, reward instantly noticeable.

This also assumes it is done in one sitting. I understand the difficulty of that task. It can be done slowly over time without a "huge" impact, ya it still takes time, still takes man power, still takes debugging. I don't think anyone disputes that. I'm more interested in them actually making an effort to do it. Even when the potion gets implemented, because lets be honest, it is, no matter what anyone says here, this is an "illusion" of choice to begin with.

Going back and screwing with old work is always a pain and risky, doesn't matter what department it is. I understand full well the fragility of games. I also know anytime I get tasked with working on older stuff I roll my eyes and "ugh." lol

[VTXShiva]

And I'm spending money....

They've got plenty of time to fix things.

1. I'm also spending money since the game released and bought both CEs, have the game on both PC and PS4 AND have a second account on PC. Are we really measuring our epeen by whose "support" is more important in an anecdotal way, because as far as I'm concerned we're both just an extra "1" on the payroll.

This isn't all about the anecdotal "you" it's about everyone in the community.
2. They don't necessarily have plenty of time to fix this. MMOs by nature need to have a constant influx of new players; they can't, as much as they'd like, rely on the constant to not change. Ideally this issue will be addressed in some form or another by Stormblood; but i don't see this happening by then using your method. And due to the nature of the change, it's not something we'll see a constant update on. It's more or less an all or nothing thing.