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

[Naunet]

How about we post productive comments with solutions? They made a massive post with a great solution the vast majority would enjoy. If you're going to claim their solution is wrong, then you need to provide one yourself.

There has been a great deal of discussion on alternative fixes to the ARR mess rather than a cash grab skip potion. But maybe posts only count as productive to you when they're supportive of SE?

[Lambdafish]

How about we post productive comments with solutions? They made a massive post with a great solution the vast majority would enjoy. If you're going to claim their solution is wrong, then you need to provide one yourself.

How about you open your mind to all avenues of possibility? You treat the pro side like it is fact, not opinion, and disregard any rebuttle. There have been a tonne of solutions put forward, discussions about viability, and how the jump potion will affect the health of the game in the long term (my view: not healthy). Just because you have viewed a handful of the 141 pages and not seen any solutions doesn't mean that there are none. I have actually seen more negativity from the pro camp, with a lot of posts responding to the "against" concerns with "You don't have to buy one, let people have what they want, it doesn't concern you" (newsflash: it concerns everyone, and the fundamental health and future of the game)

There are strong cases on both sides and this is a very important issue that could make or break the community and how the MSQ is viewed in years (and expansions) to come, please take it seriously.

Over 141 pages of people yelling the same things and arguing in circles.

Did you actually read all 141 pages? There has been several healthy debates about solutions, technical limitations, dev intentions, fears for the future. I hope the devs read all feedback very carefully.

snip

more points to add:

- Gating of content: Jump potion will relieve the devs of any urgency in fixing troublesome gating within the MSQ (2.1-2.55 and levelling fluff), and the fact that they continue to gate content behind further MSQ (original post says 3.55 part 2 will be required to access SB) is troublesome for future expansions (will 5.0 require 4.55 part 2?). The knock on effect is that jump potions become mandatory. (my view is that jump potion is fine (though now unnecessary) after this issue is fixed, as a lot of the drawbacks go away. Adding it before though, is dangerous)

- Effect on story telling: leading on from point A is the degredation of narrative. XIV has one of the best narratives I have seen in an MMO, but if jump potions become "mandatory" to climb the mountain of gating that the devs have created, then 90% of the people will hit current expat not knowing what a garlean or an ascian is. The devs will need to cater to these people and the story will suffer.

- There are better solutions: Allow skipping of certain quest chains for free as a prompt within the quest itself (as stated, the technology is already there, they have changed MSQ quests around before, and the jump potion exists), cut out fluff, and allow alternative methods of entering the expansion areas (crafting and gathering?). Thats kind of a TL;DR of points that have been brought up before, so I won't repeat myself in full.


WoW and XIV have very different progression structures, just because WoW and other MMOs have a jump potion doesn't mean that XIV won't have unique problems.

[Roth_Trailfinder]

...why? Is giving new players a shorter path to 60 really that terrible? Level cap is when the real game just gets started.

Actually, game started at level 1. You have all of that game content to play before you hit max level, and some of it can even be done with your friends!

To suggest the game starts at max level is to ignore all of the content between character creation and endgame content. Without that content, however, endgame is not actually endgame anymore.

[Vezyn]

The story jump potion idea kinda has me worried.
I was assuming they would find a better way to resolve the story gating issue once Stormblood hits, such as maybe separating the different stories akin to Guild Wars 2, so you could work on ARR and Heavensward separately at your own pace.
Also removing the story requirements to actually access the expansion areas would be my natural expectation.
Been trying to get my girlfriend to play and if the only way for her to access the content I've been showing her and what's available in the next expac is to grind for weeks/months or pay for a skip feature then I'm almost certain you've lost 2 customers already.

[MilesSaintboroguh]

The story jump potion idea kinda has me worried.
I was assuming they would find a better way to resolve the story gating issue once Stormblood hits, such as maybe separating the different stories akin to Guild Wars 2, so you could work on ARR and Heavensward separately at your own pace.
Also removing the story requirements to actually access the expansion areas would be my natural expectation.
Been trying to get my girlfriend to play and if the only way for her to access the content I've been showing her and what's available in the next expac is to grind for weeks/months or pay for a skip feature then I'm almost certain you've lost 2 customers already.

And it was already explained why the devs can't simply "drop" level and story requirements without causing other issues.

[Vezyn]

I have few issues with the job level to 60 potion to let players experience Stormblood asap, but if they really can't fix the gating issue a story catch up potion just seems like it should be an option integrated into the game rather than something we have to pay seperately for.

It just seems ridiculous to have to pay for a feature in a subscription based MMO while other free to play games have systems in place to avoid such an issue.

And I personally wouldn't use either potions, I enjoy the leveling experience and am kinda OCD when it comes to missing anything story related.

[Moonlite]

And it was already explained why the devs can't simply "drop" level and story requirements without causing other issues.

Was it explained why it seems they are making the same mistakes again with HW's leading into stormblood. Players complained what a bad idea the linking of ARR and HW quest chains was. Yet here a few years down the road history looks to be repeating and a round about admittance it cause issues to the player base growing. Which was one of the biggest complaints pre HW.

[MilesSaintboroguh]

It would take quite a bit of rework just to accomplish an in game skip, which, as others pointed out, would take a long time and would cause future content to come to a halt and we know how loud people got when 3.1 was delayed when the devs needed a vacation. Unless Square magically gets the dev team more people to work this out, this is what we're gonna get.

[Naunet]

The story jump potion idea kinda has me worried.
I was assuming they would find a better way to resolve the story gating issue once Stormblood hits, such as maybe separating the different stories akin to Guild Wars 2, so you could work on ARR and Heavensward separately at your own pace.
Also removing the story requirements to actually access the expansion areas would be my natural expectation.
Been trying to get my girlfriend to play and if the only way for her to access the content I've been showing her and what's available in the next expac is to grind for weeks/months or pay for a skip feature then I'm almost certain you've lost 2 customers already.

Yup. You and me are of same mind on this.

[Derio]

I am guessing the Jump potion pays for the extra work devs put in to enable the skip and possible loss in revenue frome them dropping the PS3. So in the east 30% of new players use the jump potion. Now in the east morals are much higher than in the west and the thought of taking shortcuts even in the gaming world is shunned against however in the US several people take as many shortcuts they can purchasable or not.

So while its 30% over there, we could see 50% or higher here in the west. Regardless I would like for them to increase tank and healer rewards in leveling roulette to encourage more people to play those roles.