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

[Lambdafish]

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

Yes exactly. The beauty of this idea is that it only skips 2 dungeons, those being snowcloak and keeper of the lake (it also skips HM primals, but they are hardly content anymore considering how easy the ex versions are). What this would do is allow you to access ishgarde as soon as you beat the praetorium. My vision is that at any point during the 2.1-2.55 MSQ, you can go to the guard on the steps of faith and request to skip to the expansion. It will then play a summary video (as I pointed out, far easier to do than a summary video for 2.0-3.55) and allow you entry to ishgarde

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.

In hindsight, you are right. The one difficulty with this change is that class quests will have to stay within the expansion area (as that is a huge change that is not worth it). It's a difficult problem that is not easily fixed, and is best learned from in SB.

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.

This is a bit of a strange one as a lot of dungeons have MSQ context, Keeper of the lake especially. What my proposed solution does is it allows people to pick and choose which bits of story they do, while still having the complete experience. Some dungeons will unlock the way you propose under my suggestions (specifically snowcloak, keeper of the lake, anti-tower, and sohr kai), with Xephatol and Baelsars Wall being added later when they are not relevant to the current expansion (being the epilogue to 4.0 that they are)

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.

Actually the only one that involves changing hooks is the job one, and even I'm not fully sold on it (see above). All of the others actually function the same as the story jump potion, except it works much smarter. What my solution involves is skipping story content that does not involve the levelling process, and allowing players choose which parts of the story they want to skip during patch content, where there is a lot of filler to make up a patches worth of content. Unlike the jump potion my method A) doesn't cost money, B) allows stormblood's story to still make sense C) allows players to get through the story much faster D) still gives players the levelling process to learn their jobs, and E) contratry to what you have said, is feasible with the information that we currently know about the jump potion.

Yes it will take some work (not nearly as much as you are proposing though), but I would expect something as important as this to take resources. This would be one of the last majorly requested QoL change to be fixed.

[subic]

Well this is an interesting topic. At first I was fully against it, now I am more accepting but still have my concerns.

Many people fear, rightfully so, if I might add, that a bunch of people will start on high level without the first idea about their job. And that will happen. But there is something we must not forget: That happens now too, except for the starting on lvl 60 part. I bet most of us have seen people playing in a way our first thoughts were "They either bought their character or just have no idea in general". That's not a new phenomenon. However, if someone wants to be good, they will try their best even if they bought the boost. I also thought thought "If you can't be bothered with leveling up a job, you should not play it" and while I still partly think like that, I now see many will probably work hard on learning their jobs. Also, this jump potion will bring people to 10 levels below maximum level so they have some training before endgame.

However, I would personally make some modifications. I would not mark all dungeons as completed with it. It just sounds wrong, make them open, sure, but not completed. This is mostly for trials and raids, though.

Also, I don't think letting people jump to lvl 50 (60 with SB) on their first character is a wise thing. I can see people not enjoying, not being interested in story and while I don't agree with them, we all have different tastes and play for different reasons. Maybe let them use a potion that clears all story content, maybe unlocks all dungeons and trials but they still have to level up their first job. This is not a competitive PvP (moba, fps shooters) game where you can jump in, play a very short amount of time and you are already playing with "top" people. Jump boost should only be able to be used if you have a maximum level character. Maybe let the story unlocking potion also increase the XP gained by the highest level combat job of the character, since they won't have story quests to do, until they reach maximum level. I can understand someone not feeling like leveling up several jobs to maximum level but if they can't do it with their very first, they should look to play a different type of game, not an MMO in my opinion.
However, the huge length of story content needing to be done in order to catch up can be scary for people not interested in the story and makes them stop after a trial account ends or sooner.

Maybe also introduce a Hall of the Novice-like feature where people can practice in different scenarios solo or in group.

[LunaFaye]

Sweet I am all for it. At least I won't have to spend 3 days getting a character from 1-60 (alt) anymore and can just jump them, making it so much easier to gain money even quicker the moment the expansion hits.

[Naunet]

snip

The only one who chose to make this into some kind of weird "epeen" thing is you. You accused me of not wanting to spend money to support the game, which was silly. I'm not sure why you felt the need to respond further and try to "one up" me when I was simply pointing out that money does get spent.

All SE needs to do is work on this gradually. They need to bake the fixes into Stormblood's own MSQ so that the problem is not self-perpetuating, and they need to BEGIN work on fixing the ARR-->HW mess. Take it in little chunks at a time. I'm not demanding miracles here; I'm demanding that SE work on their dang game.

In hindsight, you are right. The one difficulty with this change is that class quests will have to stay within the expansion area (as that is a huge change that is not worth it). It's a difficult one that is best learned from in SB.

Eh. The 30-50 class quests for DRK, AST, and MCH pretty much entirely take place in the ARR world anyway, save for the pick-up and turn-in points. Since you have to purchase HW in order to access them anyway, I don't think it should be that unusual to allow players access to only Ishgard so that they can grab those quests (and only those quests).

I just really, really did not enjoy having to play through 54 levels (which is about where you end up after you grind through the MSQ) before I could get to the job I really wanted. >_<

[VTXShiva]

The only one who chose to make this into some kind of weird "epeen" thing is you. You accused me of not wanting to spend money to support the game, which was silly.

You were the one who found a need to "point out" you're a paying costumer, as if that even means something while we're both posting on the forum. It was just a reminder that it's a stupid argument to make, even in passing.

And I never argued against the gameplay change. I want to see that process streamlined too. I'd rather see that become more enjoyable myself than spend 20$ on a potion.
HOWEVER I ALSO think many people want a solution sooner rather than later. I'd rather have the 20$ option NOW until I wait for the gameplay change to happen later down the line.
My point is that the argument you're making doesn't actively counter the purpose of the potion, they can easily co-exist with enough positives to counter the negatives.

[Lambdafish]

bought their character

So we have gone from against ToS to... directly sold by SE?

Sweet I am all for it. At least I won't have to spend 3 days getting a character from 1-60 (alt) anymore and can just jump them, making it so much easier to gain money even quicker the moment the expansion hits.

I can't tell if you are being sarcastic or not

[Naunet]

You were the one who found a need to "point out" you're a paying costumer, as if that even means something while we're both posting on the forum. It was just a reminder that it's a stupid argument to make, even in passing.

And I never argued against the gameplay change. I want to see that process streamlined too. I'd rather see that become more enjoyable myself than spend 20$ on a potion.

You literally said that I was demanding something without wanting to pay for it. I pointed out this was not true. That is ALL.

And again: if a potion exists, SE has no motivation for further improvement of the content the potion skips. Any player demands following will be directed to the Mog Station for the price of a skip potion.

[Cedane]

You were the one who found a need to "point out" you're a paying costumer, as if that even means something while we're both posting on the forum. It was just a reminder that it's a stupid argument to make, even in passing.

And I never argued against the gameplay change. I want to see that process streamlined too. I'd rather see that become more enjoyable myself than spend 20$ on a potion.
HOWEVER I ALSO think many people want a solution sooner rather than later. I'd rather have the 20$ option NOW until I wait for the gameplay change to happen later down the line.
My point is that the argument you're making doesn't actively counter the purpose of the potion, they can easily co-exist with enough positives to counter the negatives.

I really don't want to jump on this argument at all, but, if I can just point out...

If they changed the dungeons at all, there would be people here proclaiming doom and gloom about that too, with arguments, panic, etc. It would have been a no win situation for the company no matter what path they took in this. People have complained in the past when things were modified to be easier in the past and I remember that very clearly. This is probably the big reason why they won't modify or touch the past content for that reason alone.

People will complain, no matter what kind of change SE would add in.

But, like I said, I don't mind the jump potions and I think we should see the results first when they are implemented in the system. I think taking the 'wait and see' approach is the best way to go. We only have an outline of how it will work. We have to see how they work and if it validates our fears or if its overblown.

It CAN be fixed or changed if it does go the way the anti-jump folks are going on about.

[LunaFaye]

!

*beware off topic, but I couldn't help it :/

I wish we could make our characters look like the dogs in your signature.... I would have the best time ever running dungeons like that lol

I can't tell if you are being sarcastic or not

not being sarcastic.

[VTXShiva]

You literally said that I was demanding something without wanting to pay for it. And again: if a potion exists, SE has no motivation for further improvement of the content the potion skips. Any player demands following will be directed to the Mog Station for the price of a skip potion.

The context was in regards to the options
Pay for *potion* - No
Have resource intensive solution - Yes
Expect little to no delay on any of the rest of the content - Yes (and don't even try to contest this! The second a patch is delayed a month or two everyone will be screaming like little b****es; I've played MMOs far too many years to not see this one coming) It may not apply to you specifically, as it tends to not apply to me either, but when it comes to most people, this isn't a point of contention.

After everything this game has gone through and all the improvements and good faith from the developers, i sense a little bit of ill-will in your post.