Quality of Life Improvements and MSQ Gating for New Players

[Hasrat]

There are already plenty of gates in terms of class levels/iLvls for dungeons eg.

If someone has purchased the base game plus expansions, why should they be locked out of areas/maps, NPCs purely for story reasons?

How many times do I need to repeat this point? Because that is exactly how devs intend for this game to be played. Arguing against it is arguing for the game to be different than what it is and what it is meant to be. I'm not going to go play a first-person shooter and complain that I'd rather play in third-person. I'm not playing Minecraft and complaining that there's no story. I'm not playing Sims and complaining that there's no action/platforming.

FF XIV is a story-driven game. That's not going to appeal to every player. It's not supposed to. There are mountains of other games available to those players. A game is under no obligation to appeal to everyone.

[TwistedTea]

..FFXIV is a story-driven game...

How many times must I repeat the point that just because the game is story-driven doesn't mean that content such as areas/maps and NPCs should be locked behind story? Not in a social MMORPG catered towards casuals?

In single-player, locking out such things makes sense. FFXIV is good at getting you leveled really fast even without MSQ.Start of HW, main was already past 60. Any little difficulty MSQ provided became laughable. A movie which is interrupted by a few fights here and there.

FFXI has managed to be story driven and still provide a relative amount of 'freedom' when it comes to such content.

A social MMORPG has to appeal to a large audience to gain new subscriptions. The investment for a newbie either through time or jump potions to get the newest content is not attractive compared to the competition.

No/few new players= increase monetization efforts especially through non-sub based revenue streams.

[Zojha]

A game is under no obligation to appeal to everyone.

As a matter of fact, a game is under no obligation to appeal to anyone.

It's just going to hurt its own success if it doesn't. Which is what the original reddit was about - People having a lot of trouble convincing their friends to stick with the game due to the MSQ. I'm not surprised that people defend SE shooting themselves in the foot like that, but I am amazed it's not coming from the people who usually wish SE to crash and burn.

[KisaiTenshi]

As a matter of fact, a game is under no obligation to appeal to anyone.

It's just going to hurt its own success if it doesn't. Which is what the original reddit was about - People having a lot of trouble convincing their friends to stick with the game due to the MSQ. I'm not surprised that people defend SE shooting themselves in the foot like that, but I am amazed it's not coming from the people who usually wish SE to crash and burn.

Because it's a Final Fantasy game, therefor the story is important.

Leveling is the primary gate in MOST MMORPG games, and are actually are designed this way, because you become a one-hit-ko.

This game gates stuff behind MSQ because it assumes you are playing it for the story. You don't start watching a film at the third act climax. You don't start reading a novel at the last chapter. Asking to skip directly to HW or SB expansion's is like skipping the first and/or second book in a series.