An option for characters to start at level 50, pre-heavensward, for FREE

[Kaedan]

Because that's hundreds of hours of story to get through before you make it to endgame, and as has already been explained, some players don't care about story in an MMO, they care about endgame.
It's a large portion of their customerbase, who will feel forced to fork out extra money to play the game the way they want to play it.

Imagine if it was the other way around:
The base game and expansions unlock the world, jobs, and your endgame content, but if you want to play through the story, it's $5 per 'chapter'.

This is a double blow for those who fall somewhere in the middle, who don’t necessarily not care about the story, but want to reach endgame to play with their friends ASAP, and then maybe replay it for the story at a later date.
The story skip potions for them, is basically paying for the privilege of less content.

You completely missed the point.

New players who buy Shadowbringers will be getting $80 worth of expansions for free. That MORE than makes up for the cost of paying for an ARR story skip potion.

When 6.0 comes out, new players will get a whopping $120 worth of expansion free.

EDIT: And let me be clear. I have no issue with people who don't care about story having the option to do so. And they do. What I have an issue with is people wanting it for free, because that's just plain selfishness at that point.

[Seraphor]

You completely missed the point.

New players who buy Shadowbringers will be getting $80 worth of expansions for free. That MORE than makes up for the cost of paying for an ARR story skip potion.

When 6.0 comes out, new players will get a whopping $120 worth of expansion free.

That's how MMO's usually work anyway...
It's old, outdated content, it goes in the bargain bin at gamestop for $5.
It is nowhere near $80 of content anymore. Hell HW is currently FREE anyway, that's how SE feel about it, it's free.

[Kaedan]

That's how MMO's usually work anyway...
It's old, outdated content, it goes in the bargain bin at gamestop for $5.
It is nowhere near $80 of content anymore.

First of all, ARR skip potion is $18 normally, $7 on sale with each new expansion. So even if we use your logically flawed example, you're still paying less than the value you're getting.

As for being "outdated", in FF14 it's not.

HW unlocks DRK, AST, and MCH.
SB unlocks SAM and RDM
ShB unlocks GNB and DNC

Those jobs are all continuously updated.
Furthermore, the old content is still relevant.

And that doesn't change the fact that they are still getting what others had to pay $80 for free. So it's more than fair that if they want to SKIP it they pay a small fraction of that cost.

[Seraphor]

First of all, ARR skip potion is $18 normally, $7 on sale with each new expansion. So even if we use your logically flawed example, you're still paying less than the value you're getting.

As for being "outdated", in FF14 it's not.

HW unlocks DRK, AST, and MCH.
SB unlocks SAM and RDM
ShB unlocks GNB and DNC

Those jobs are all continuously updated.
Furthermore, the old content is still relevant.

And that doesn't change the fact that they are still getting what others had to pay $80 for free. So it's more than fair that if they want to SKIP it they pay a small fraction of that cost.

Again, paying for less content, is completely illogical.

[Kaedan]

Again, paying for less content, is completely illogical.

??????

You're not paying for less content. You're paying to SKIP content you don't want to do (and would otherwise have to do).

Let's reiterate here: You want the option to skip story, for whatever reason. Sure, that's fine. Great. That's your prerogative. But it MORE than makes sense for you to have to pay for the PRIVILEGE of skipping 100 hours of content. Especially when as a new player you are getting the previous expansions for free.

You're not getting less content... you can still DO the content (even after you skip it come ShB). So don't try to make dishonest claims to support a bad argument.

[Lersayil]

Again, paying for less content, is completely illogical.

Thats like... 80% of the market strategy of the current F2P market tho. Pay for convenience? Pay to skip? Not sayin' your assertion is wrong, just funny to point out.

[linay]

Again, paying for less content, is completely illogical.

First, you're paying for the game to complete the content for you in a fraction of the time it would've taken you to do manually. So your character still gains the benefit of completing the content.

Second, please look forward to New Game+. You can experience completed content at your leisure.

Conclusion: You're not paying for less content, you're paying to save time while still having your character progresses through the content.

[Iscah]

That's how MMO's usually work anyway...
It's old, outdated content, it goes in the bargain bin at gamestop for $5.
It is nowhere near $80 of content anymore. Hell HW is currently FREE anyway, that's how SE feel about it, it's free.

In this game's format, it isn't outdated because it's still part of the story, and the current content builds on it.

Also the "Heavensward for free" thing seems like it might be a workaround for those people that have the base game and are waiting for their Shadowbringers purchase to unlock the expansions. They still need the base game, they'll likely be getting HW for free pretty soon if they don't already have it, and it's still not giving away current content.

[Seraphor]

EDIT: And let me be clear. I have no issue with people who don't care about story having the option to do so. And they do. What I have an issue with is people wanting it for free, because that's just plain selfishness at that point.

Again, imagine if it was the other way around, which could be a very plausible scenario, as many other 'games as service' use this model.
The base game and expansions unlock the world, jobs, and your endgame content, but if you want to play through the story, it's $5 per 'chapter'.

How would you feel?
The "endgamers" get to play their game, but as a "story player" you have to pay more than them...

However you want to play the game, paying for the privilege of LESS content, is always going to sting, hard.