Quote Originally Posted by Lambdafish View Post
Imagine this scenario: Upon finishing 2.0, the player gets the following message:

"In order to gain access to Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward, you must complete all main scenario quests from patches 2.1 through 2.55. If you wish to gain immediate access to expansion content, you may do so by speaking to the guard outside the steps of faith in Coerthas central highlands.

*Note: Gaining access to the expansion this way will mark all Main Scenario Quests from 2.1 to 2.55 as complete. You can watch all cutscenes in the unending journey, and furthermore a summary video will play upon entering the expansion zone for the first time."

What story is butchered? This is similar to the jump potion, except the only content being cut is the content that people have a problem with, rather than all story. On top of that, it is much easier to summarise the events of 2.1-2.55 than it is summarising 2.0-3.55. (And yes, this is viable, all of the technology has already been used within the game).

The same thing could also be done for 3.1-3.3, and on the run up to 5.0, could be changed to 3.1-3.55 (due to 3.4-3.55 being the prologue to 4.0).
This really is no longer an issue with 3.1- on, the patches are much smaller compared to the 2.1-2.55 patches. Being able to skip is a luxury, not a necessity.

It's more of a potential fear that the story will be butchered if they decided to not put a paid skip item in. Instead, they would shorten the story instead of doing the work arounds of what you suggested. They have already done it with other features that I have listed in another response.

If you don't see an issue with gating a new expansion behind 60 hours (at least) of old content, I don't know what I can possibly say to change your mind. I'm of the mind of giving players a choice, but the jump potion is an awful way to segregate players because it skips all main story content, rather than just the fluff. Players miss a lot of important context if they use a jump potion, and the devs need to tailor an experience where a player can fast-track the story in the most optimal way.


The reason that people have an issue is that the devs acknowledged feedback and have done nothing about it. Jump potions are not a solution:

"Though it’s still a bit early to talk about this, you’ll be able to access and accept quests for Patch 4.0 even if you have not completed the main scenario for the Patch 3.x series. Similarly, you’ll be able to unlock new jobs regardless of your scenario progression. Due to this, we feel the need to create a system that will allow you to watch a digest of what happened. However, for the 3.0 story, since everyone has seen everything up until now I think it was enjoyable, and while there were some pros and cons for this, I think having the system we did for the 3.x series was a good thing." - 22nd August 2015 (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...e-Thread/page2)

What this turned into:

"Upon using the “Adventuring Records of Heavensward,” the player character will have completed the main quest up to the final quest in patch 3.5 part 2, as well as accepting the initial main quest for Stormblood." - 17th December 2016 (OP of this thread)
He also did a more recent interview(E3 2016) where he clearly stated the main story will be continuous and he hopes player understand that. http://gamerescape.com/2016/06/17/e3...naoki-yoshida/

GE: You previously said that 4.0 won’t be story gated. We were wondering if you could elaborate on what your plans are for that?

Yoshida: In terms of the story- the narratives are continuous. The expectation is that the players will start with ARR and continue through the expansion. The lesson with having 3.0 released was that all of the content of the expansion wasn’t accessible until you beat ARR. The feedback, especially from the Western audiences, was that players weren’t able to access any of the Heavensward content until having completed 2.0. We would still like players to get through the story content, but some of the elements in the expansion we’re considering letting players access certain elements without having to complete content from ARR.

Another thing we’re debating internally is whether or not to have something like World of Warcraft’s jumping potion that would work with both levels an story. The Chinese version actually has something similar to this already. I’m trying to decide if something like this should be timed with 4.0.

I don't see an issue and don't really care, you can't pick and choose what you want to skip and not skip. Either make the decision to pay for the skip and possibly skip potential interesting things. OR not pay for the skip and complete it the normal and intended way.