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

[Rufalus]

From page one to here, there has been talk about "other ways" but ... Can someone please come up with a really good idea ?

Lol you said what I was thinking. It's easy to criticise; less easy to offer alternatives and open yourself up to criticism. The problem with changing old content to make it more streamlined is this takes dev resources away from creating new content, and you can bet people would not be happy about the delays that would cause. Jump potion is a quick fix to allow new players to bypass old content if they desire. It really doesn't hurt existing players who already cleared the old scenario for free. Offering options to people will help prevent the death spiral of the game. Most people will still play old content the way we did. Some may buy a skip, that's their call. If they find story quests painful or just want to catch up to a friend to play the same content together, it is good to have the choice.

[Keitou]

snip.

But it doesn't have to be that way lol. There is a simple solution for this. Add new content that anyone can play. As said before, more content accessible at lower levels. PotD is already a perfect example of this. And it's attracting early game and end game players both because both players have an incentive to do it. (rewards, goal to reaching the top, etc). You can also play together, wasn't that the intention in the first place because of why a potion is being implemented? Now, regarding MSQ, that's going to take some time of course. No need for a whole rework, just tweaks to the gating, and restrictions. A skip for unnecessary filler jumbo in the story would be fine for me as well but not the whole thing. I'm getting tired of repeating this, but in order to make a great game, you gotta try to improve it in all areas, make it enjoyable in all parts of the game. This will benefit in the long run. The potion isn't really going to fix this. New players are still going to quit more than buy the potion because this doesn't fix the origin of the issue.

[Rufalus]

snipped reply to me

One of the examples Yoshida presented is an existing player who is starting Stormblood and wants to invite a friend who is new to the game. Let's just say the friend is an mmo veteran who is neither interested in the FF XIV story nor do they need any slow low-level dungeons to get a hang of this kind of gameplay. The existing player is willing to help their friend catch up a little, but they really want to be playing the new Stormblood content instead of doing old/side stuff like Palace of the Dead. With the option to buy a skip, the friend can instantly be ready for Stormblood content and now both friends are able to be in the same position and have a first-time experience the new content together.

I think ultimately, it's impossible to streamline all of the patch 2.0 to 3.55 scenario quests and gating enough without significant development cost. It will always be a hindrance to players who are not interested in that content, and the length of the quest chain gets bigger every year, putting new players further and further behind the latest expansions. Imagine years down the line when a new person has to catch up thousands of quests through to patch 6.55 or something with no skips available. So we let people skip scenario if they desire. Also services the kind of people who bounce between different mmos just to do the raiding or pvp, who have no interest in story or leveling and would unsub this game if they were forced to do all that catch-up.

[DrStiles]

One of the examples Yoshida presented is an existing player who is starting Stormblood and wants to invite a friend who is new to the game.

And that invited friend is expected to shell out $40~45 (final pricing TBD, but this is the estimate Yoshida gives) if they want to play with their friend in any reasonable timeframe. They are expected to buy a fix for FFXIV's content gating problem, when no other MMO requires it, because in other MMOs, this issue doesn't exist. It would be one thing if new players were given both a level and story jump potion complimentary. But it is quite another to ask new players to pay an enormous fee, just to overcome SE's flawed content design. If these potions were really about making the game accessible to potential new players, it they would be included with the expansion just like in WoW.

[Lyraele]

And that invited friend is expected to shell out $40~45 (final pricing TBD, but this is the estimate Yoshida gives) if they want to play with their friend in any reasonable timeframe. They are expected to buy a fix for FFXIV's content gating problem, when no other MMO requires it, because in other MMOs, this issue doesn't exist. It would be one thing if new players were given both a level and story jump potion complimentary. But it is quite another to ask new players to pay an enormous fee, just to overcome SE's flawed content design. If these potions were really about making the game accessible to potential new players, it they would be included with the expansion just like in WoW.

I'd be good with "buy the expansion, it includes one complimentary story skip item for free". That would help my friends (not that spending a few extra bucks will sway them one way or another). If they changed it to that, all of your objects ions would be gone?

[AlphaFox]

I'd be good with "buy the expansion, it includes one complimentary story skip item for free". That would help my friends (not that spending a few extra bucks will sway them one way or another). If they changed it to that, all of your objects ions would be gone?

Maybe as a complete bundle of ARR:HW:SB all in one that would also give a potion to but giving everyone who buys the expansion seems a tad much to me. That and I assume some of us are already maxed to 60 on our fighting jobs, would go to waste unless we held on to it till 5.0 to boost one job to 70.