New Player Experience Sucks! - Impending Expansion Problems

[Awha]

I hope that Square can come up with a fix that is not a xp boost, because even these don't really help. I have a friend that's lvl 70 and still haven't finished stormblood MSQ, he's capped on mendacity and can't even buy his gear because the npc is not there, we can't do maps with him because if it ends up on the lochs, for example, he can't acess it. He can't even do the secondary lvl 70 dungeons because these quests only appear after you've finished stormblood. He can't progress through the new raids or trials because these quests, even though optional, won't appear unless he finishes Stormblood msq. I don't even know if he can start beast tribes, but my guess is that he can't. Even though they're optional and not related to the msq, even though he has the level for them, he still needs to do msq to do these.

I ran into that issue with a friend of mine. I do hope SB story skip at the very least come out soon it is a shame since it does enjoy the games combat and classes, but sadly the story is simply not his cup of tea and given the aesthetic he is having a hard time even attempting SB.

The MSQ (or optional side quest if it's a side-quest unlocked duty) explains the reason of "Oh we need you to do this in this duty" thus giving the reason. Filling it in later wouldn't work for me, as it'd still be unlocked at the level, and not after the quest explaining why. The flow would still be completely broken for me. RuneScape had quest gatings for areas, which were unlocked as you progressed through the quest chains, so each area also had the meaning behind it. There were plenty "open access" areas mind you, but the areas that were quest gated, had their stories explained behind them, and your reasons for accessing them. Notice how I agreed with Physic's idea of allowing someone to undock them if they didn't want to deal with the MSQ.



It's fine to toss out ideas, isn't that the whole point of this thread, to toss out ideas and weigh up how they'll affect different people, in order to find a compromise? As for your spitballing... That could work. So long as the green MSQ went through the reasoning of why you were going into that duty, the aftermath of it could be thrown to sidequests yes. I'd still have my reason for entering the duty explained to me before I go in, and so it'd cut the mustard for me. Pretty good idea actually. And yes, for every duty, the reasoning behind it is explained, with varying degrees of success in its effectiveness.

As I mentioned before in a edit, I do understand where you are coming from just for me it confuses me. In the end the tunneling aspect of the MSQ is important to you and part of the reason as to why the connection between the world and story exist? I am an extremely weird person that skips around when it comes to books or series, so the writing in itself is just one aspect of what helps immerse yourself in the story. Please correct me if I am wrong, in the end the reason why maybe some including yourself do not agree with making content level gated instead of MSQ gated is because it breaks the linear path set up by the developers since the game throws exp at players as such an alarming rate that sooner or later one is bound to out level the MSQ, and you as a player already know that content has been unlocked, which ruins the connection between the game world and your character?

Or is it maybe something simpler like back tracking is simply more hassle then it is worth?

Once again I sort of understand to a degree with what you are saying about how you enjoy the story, not trying to question that simply trying to understand what helps foster the connection between the game story and the player.