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

[Lambdafish]

From page one to here, there has been talk about "other ways" ... but ... Can someone please come up with a really good idea from these "x number of ways" that doesn't break the game?

SE has a solution. Can anyone come up with a better one?

Go back literally 5 posts from when this was posted and you will see some. (In fact, the response directly before this is talking about them)

At 10 levels below cap with gear for 10 levels below cap, what exactly are you winning?

Have you ever played one of those free to play money sucking mobile games? Their entire grab is that they are addictive but the activities take far too long to allow you to enjoy the game without purchase. What you win from the jump potion is the same. It is instant gratification of having a level 60 character and being top level without working for it. Granted, I have a far greater issue with the levelling potion than the story potion (because the levelling potion is literally paying for experience points on any number of jobs), but both involve you paying to decrease the amount of time it takes to get your reward, just like the free to play mobile games (this is framed from the mindset of someone who is incentivised by the potion)

[Imoen]

snip

Their entire point was that it doesn't take you to cap, so that somehow makes it better.

[Aramina]

Go back literally 5 posts from when this was posted and you will see some. (In fact, the response directly before this is talking about them)



Have you ever played one of those free to play money sucking mobile games? Their entire grab is that they are addictive but the activities take far too long to allow you to enjoy the game without purchase. What you win from the jump potion is the same. It is instant gratification of having a level 60 character and being top level without working for it. Granted, I have a far greater issue with the levelling potion than the story potion (because the levelling potion is literally paying for experience points on any number of jobs), but both involve you paying to decrease the amount of time it takes to get your reward, just like the free to play mobile games (this is framed from the mindset of someone who is incentivised by the potion)

For the millionth time. You. Will. Not. Be. Max. Level.

[Lambdafish]

You. Will. Not. Be. Max. Level.

My mistake, I mistyped top level (It's 1am), what I meant was top level as it is right now. But regardless, the point still stands. It is instant gratification that people can immediately jump to the point we are at now (no wait... a point that hasn't even been released yet) without putting any effort in. Max level or not, the content we are talking about hasn't even been released yet, and we are deciding on whether or not to allow people to skip it.

[Belhi]

Go back literally 5 posts from when this was posted and you will see some. (In fact, the response directly before this is talking about them)

Have you ever played one of those free to play money sucking mobile games? Their entire grab is that they are addictive but the activities take far too long to allow you to enjoy the game without purchase. What you win from the jump potion is the same. It is instant gratification of having a level 60 character and being top level without working for it. Granted, I have a far greater issue with the levelling potion than the story potion (because the levelling potion is literally paying for experience points on any number of jobs), but both involve you paying to decrease the amount of time it takes to get your reward, just like the free to play mobile games (this is framed from the mindset of someone who is incentivised by the potion)

Most of the solutions suggested are either unrealistic as far as resources or design or don't solve the problem at the core of this situation.

THE ISSUE THAT MOST SPROUTS SEEM TO HAVE ISNT THE QUALITY BUT THE LENGTH OF THE MSQ. THE LENGTH.

THE. LENGTH.

If you don't address that issue nothing is solved and the problem with retaining new players continues to become a problem. This is a major issue. New players are the life blood of every MMO out there. Without a constant steady stream you MMO starts to go into decline as player churn causes it to bleed out.

Tweaking quests wont solve that and any actual improvements would only solve the problem for one expansion at best before they had to resort to some kind of fastracking system. Removing gating might but it has its own swarm of related issues, not the least of which would be accessibility for RMT/bots and many of the issues with people not knowing their classes (You already have this with people speedleveling in PotD) and frankly we don't know from a system perspective how difficult that would be.

Honestly leaving out the Leveling potion wouldn't be much of an issue at the moment (three expansions down the road might be a different story). Just the Story potion would solve a lot of the issues for now. However most of the issues you have with a auto levelled character you will have with a someone who has speedleveled using the first 3 floors of PotD.

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.

Does it really matter if it goes to waste if the Potion isn't priced into the cost of the expansion? I tend to agree adding one set of potions free in each copy of SB would be the most sensible and fair use of the feature and fit the intended purpose the best.

[Lambdafish]

Most of the solutions suggested are either unrealistic as far as resources or design or don't solve the problem at the core of this situation.

Most of the suggestions work exactly like the jump potion, albeit more selectively.

[B][U]THE ISSUE THAT MOST SPROUTS SEEM TO HAVE ISNT THE QUALITY BUT THE LENGTH OF THE MSQ. THE LENGTH.

My main suggestion was making it possible to entirely cut out patch content, i.e. cutting down the primary gripe that people have about the length (that being 2.1-2.55), this greatly shortens the time it takes to get to both expansion areas.

Removing gating might but it has its own swarm of related issues, not the least of which would be accessibility for RMT/bots and many of the issues with people not knowing their classes (You already have this with people speedleveling in PotD) and frankly we don't know from a system perspective how difficult that would be.

I didn't actually suggest removing gating (except for jobs, but I even admitted that that was unlikely to be possible), what I said was to add new content that was ungated, like PotD. This allows new players to do something current with their friends while enjoying the MSQ (perhaps eureka would work this way? who knows - it is presumably in mor dhona).

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?

At best it would be included in the collectors edition I think.

[DrStiles]

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?

More or less.

The jump potions are coming. That's not up for debate. SE has made it very clear that their intention is to introduce them. Personally, I do not want them. I don't think level boosts should exist in any form, and I would much rather SE actually fix the problems with the MSQ than add a skip button. But that's just my personal opinion. At the end of the day, my preferences don't outweigh the game's or community's needs. And I would rather have more populated servers so that the game doesn't fall into steady decline. If jump potions are the only way SE is willing to address it, then I suppose I will be willing to make that concession.

[DrStiles]

But don't mistake me. If the MSQ continues along in a sequential fashion, as it has so far, it will become increasingly difficult for new players to join the game without these potions. Anyone with even a fraction of foresight can see that. SE needs to understand that they will make more money in the long term by keeping players subscribed. By offering a story skip potion for free, new players won't feel they're being charged "extra" just to start, relative to other MMOs, and those players will be much more likely to try the game and ultimately subscribe to it. which is more or less the point, isn't it?

[Kyonika]

Go back literally 5 posts from when this was posted and you will see some. (In fact, the response directly before this is talking about them)

Umm...I asked for ideas that didn't break the game, but all your suggestions break the game in one way or another. You may not see it that way ofc, but - from an objective view - they do damage the way the game works right now, and as it was designed to be.

Have you ever played one of those free to play money sucking mobile games? Their entire grab is that they are addictive but the activities take far too long to allow you to enjoy the game without purchase. What you win from the jump potion is the same. It is instant gratification of having a level 60 character and being top level without working for it. Granted, I have a far greater issue with the levelling potion than the story potion (because the levelling potion is literally paying for experience points on any number of jobs), but both involve you paying to decrease the amount of time it takes to get your reward, just like the free to play mobile games (this is framed from the mindset of someone who is incentivised by the potion)

Oh, I see now. So that's why. You want to deny this emerging reality due to your feelings of perceived cheapening/loss of accomplishment.

Anyways, please try to be understanding as I go through this...

So, you are in the "I had to grind countless hours to level to 50, and don't want some newbie to be able to buy a drink and do the same in an instant" camp, right? News flash: we all did the slow way, and many of us don't have a problem with the Zero-to-Hero potion. And in other news: this change is the reality now in Korea and China, and is coming to the rest of FF14 along with Bloodstorm! It was an inevitability - sooner or later, and it's pretty good timing for SE to release it with the next expac. And I - along with many - do believe that this is a positive and necessary thing for the longevity of the game.

Also, please do take into account that many newbies will likely not want either potion: either for being too pricey, or b'cos they want to experience the game the way it was meant to be played. However, there will be some who will want to just get the leveling potion, so they can just focus on the MSQ story, and not have to deal with the insane amounts of side-quests - and other distractions - just to level their class. And then there will be the newbies that were referred by their friends (or bf/gf/partner/spouse/etc.) who will buy both potions, so that they can do the same things together in the new expac. Ultimately, these "jump potions" simply give players more choice and flexibility - without breaking the game we all enjoy.

Boosted characters, right out of the gate, are the norm now in a lot of present day MMOs, and they are usually sold in each games' respective cash shops. And, this will continue to be more the norm as we go into the future. This is the paradigm that trends are shifting towards: as you said - instant gratification. And this paradigm shift was introduced by social trends stemming from social media, mobile apps and games: stats show that social media and mobile apps have made the average person's attention span shorter than a goldfish's. So, to meet this present and emerging trend, game developers, and their games, have to adapt to capture their audience, or risk dying out.

Now, please allow me to be blunt...

This is the inexorable truth: you don't have to like it, but you do have to live with it.

[Lambdafish]

Oh, I see now. So that's why. You want to deny this emerging reality due to your feelings of perceived cheapening/loss of accomplishment.

So, you are in the "I had to grind countless hours to level to 50, and don't want some newbie to be able to buy a drink and do the same in an instant" camp, right?

Not at all, I do see the benefits of the jump potion, Yoshi P, and lots of other people have already pointed them out. I can see that it would allow new players (and if HW is anything to go by, there will be a lot of new players) to get straight into the expansion and experience the 2017 game that they bought (XIV:Stormblood) and get into endgame at the same time as current players while it is relevant (highlighting the problem with content redundancy for a new player offhand). I disagree about playing with friends, but that is because I want to see more content like PotD which allows lower level and higher level players alike to play together on current content (I praised the hell out of that fact in 3.3).

You seem to think that my views are selfish, and that I feel like I am losing out and it is hurting my epeen. I don't care about my own progress, my levelling process was months and months ago, and I have put far more hours into the game than I care to admit, something which I don't expect a newbie to do. MY issue is that of the games health, I care about this game and I want it to succeed in all areas, and to me the jump potion represents a band aid fix to cover up a problem rather than solve it. We all knew that it would come eventually, but it is sad that it is this early into the games life (and despite what people might say, the levelling potion is still a bad idea given how quick levelling is - and it's not about cheaping my experience, it is about doing content and getting used to your role one skill at a time, which is an experience that is wholey unnecessary to remove).

Also, please do take into account that many newbies will likely not want either potion: either for being too pricey, or b'cos they want to experience the game the way it was meant to be played.

The jump potion also means that the story issues will never be fixed for these players I saw it said before in this thread that any complaints about gating will now be redirected to the cash shop (which will be true), meaning the devs never need to worry about gating or bloating, because hey, you can just skip all that.

Boosted characters, right out of the gate, are the norm now in a lot of present day MMOs...

XIV is slightly different to other MMOs in that it's entire content is centered around the story. This is uncommon in an MMO and presents new challenges. I don't know many MMOs that specifically have a story skip potion, and the future I see for that is sad. Here is why this band aid fix is bad: We are currently entering 4.0, there is a mountain to climb in regards to having to beat 2.0-2.55, then having to also do 3.0-3.55, that, however, is possible. Image though in 7.0, you will have to do 2.x, 3.x, 4.x, 5.x and 6.x. "But Lambdafish" you say, "they can use a jump potion, thats the point of it", except that isn't the point. Come 7.0 the jump potion will be mandatory (and still a premium price), because the devs do not need to go back and fix the gating formula because their solution was jump potion. What this does is it means that most, if not all new players will not know the story, and won't know their garlean from their ascian. This causes problems from a narrative level and even world building, as a new problem will be having to explain to all new players what the hell is going on in the story (while also making it so new players don't feel that things are being reiterated).

This is the inexorable truth: you don't have to like it, but you do have to live with it.

There is truth to what you say yes, we are both right in different ways, and just living with it doesn't solve problems. You might be ok with the jump potion but what I want is the best solution, and I feel that the jump potion is not the right way to handle this problem yet, and the root of the problem needs to be fixed instead of just band aiding it and ignoring it.


Having lived in Eorzea, and taken this journey with the dev team for 4 years, I know that the devs can be extremely short sighted. Remember housing, remember diadem, remember 3.0 launch with half the jobs being unplayable. The dev team means well but their eyes are firmly rooted on the present rather than the future (I like to call this reactive game design as opposed to proactive game design), and I fear that being hasty about the jump potion will have consequences for the future of the game.