New Player Experience Sucks! - Impending Expansion Problems

[Penthea]

There is an absurd amount of forced MSQ that people must do before they can get into current content, and that's going to turn off a lot of people.

But even if the msq didn't exist you couldn't jump straight in to current content anyway. You still have to lvl up. You still have to gear up. The only times it blocks you is at 50 and 60, but you benefit greatly from the gear those quests give you so it's not as if it's actually a waste of time. Sure you could use vendor gear but it's not very good and you can feel it when a tank or healer is using it.

The only thing "absurd" about the msq is some of the utterly needless back and forth quests in the lvl 50 section. With that streamlined it would be fine. The 60 section is fine.

[Physic]

But even if the msq didn't exist you couldn't jump straight in to current content anyway. You still have to lvl up. You still have to gear up. The only times it blocks you is at 50 and 60, but you benefit greatly from the gear those quests give you so it's not as if it's actually a waste of time. Sure you could use vendor gear but it's not very good and you can feel it when a tank or healer is using it.

The only thing "absurd" about the msq is some of the utterly needless back and forth quests in the lvl 50 section. With that streamlined it would be fine. The 60 section is fine.

they can streamline leveling and gearing pretty easily, in fact they already have. Getting from 1-50 us faster than it used to be, and you can play with friends while doing it if you want. Playing MSQ with a friend is like, oh, ill wait 40 minutes until you get to the next dungeon. Meanwhile the person knowing their friend is waiting feels pressure to finish faster. The gates just dont work well for dealing with friends. It would work a lot better if you could do relevant content with friends and do story when you are alone.

If you and your friends got two hours to play together, that might only be 2 dungeons due to MSQ and lockouts.

[Penthea]

Playing MSQ with a friend is like, oh, ill wait 40 minutes until you get to the next dungeon. Meanwhile the person knowing their friend is waiting feels pressure to finish faster.

I'm sorry but what's stopping you from doing something else while they do their quests? Nothing is forcing you to sit around doing nothing. Do your daily hunts, go gathering, visit the gold saucer, craft some things, do beast tribe dailies...I could go on for a while. My friends didn't feel pressured because I assured them they could take their time, and they knew I was doing other things I wanted to do while they did their quests.

The gates just dont work well for dealing with friends.

Not been my experience at all. But then again I didn't sit around doing nothing while my buddies did their quests.

If you and your friends got two hours to play together, that might only be 2 dungeons due to MSQ and lockouts.

Two hours isn't a lot of time in a mmo regardless of whether you're doing msq or not.

[Physic]

I'm sorry but what's stopping you from doing something else while they do their quests? Nothing is forcing you to sit around doing nothing. Do your daily hunts, go gathering, visit the gold saucer, craft some things, do beast tribe dailies...I could go on for a while. My friends didn't feel pressured because I assured them they could take their time, and they knew I was doing other things I wanted to do while they did their quests.



Not been my experience at all. But then again I didn't sit around doing nothing while my buddies did their quests.



Two hours isn't a lot of time in a mmo regardless of whether you're doing msq or not.

i can do other things, possibly, but i cant play with them. If you set aside two hours to play with friends, but the game only lets you do it for 40/120 minutes, thats a fail.

and 2 hours is 6 dungeons, or all your dailies, or a bunch of gold saucer, or progress in eureka, or 9 maps, or 8 potds. unless they are new, doing msq, then its substantially less time.

And its not about me, when you invite a friend to a shared activity, they generally expect a shared activity. Imagine you invite your friend to go somewhere, then ditch them for 2/3rd the time.

[Paladinleeds]

If I may ask how does having the MSQ be optional impact you negatively?

So if the quests are optional and don't unlock the dungeons (if this isn't what the OP etc are advocating for feel free to correct me), then I feel like "Why am I here?" - I had this problem with WoW. I would unlock a new dungeon... ok, so why am I here? Certain trials and dungeons however absolutely are mandatory to the main scenario such as:

Tsukuyomi: She is a major plot point through the Stormblood MSQ. Making her optional would stop the flow of the duty IMO, you need all the build up for that duty to make sense, else it's just another "Ok, so why am I fighting her?"

The thing is, the story giving definition to each dungeon, trial, and raid (sloppy writing aside, looking at you Omega... but even then, I still enjoyed the duties and felt they had a reason to exist even if they did feel a bit shoehorned in), is exactly why I love this game. Even though I do the grind, I still feel like I've got a reason for every duty I enter. It doesn't just feel like "oh, another dungeon". So yeah, for me, it's the depth I feel gets added from having a story behind each duty.