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

[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.

[Driavna]

IMO what is going to happen at some point expansions will include a skip potion once SE consider is more likely that people leave than stick around. You can say whatever you want, yet in reality, the game is designed to be played by a wide arrange of players and some just want to play with their friends.

And is sad because giving skipping potions is not the solution. From my point of view not making each expansion independent was a mistake, why I mean by this? Simple, keep everything like it is today but once you hit 50 with a class you can jump right away to HW, continue with ARR or mix both if you feel like it. Same for everything else. Want to unlock everything from an expansion? Finish the relevant MSQ and side quests. Want to rush to the latest expansion to play with your friend? Go ahead, you can always continue with ARR/HW/SB later on!

Sadly I know is not going to happen because at times certain MSQ require to revisit locations from other expansions.

[Lersayil]

IMO what is going to happen at some point expansions will include a skip potion once SE consider is more likely that people leave than stick around. You can say whatever you want, yet in reality, the game is designed to be played by a wide arrange of players and some all they want to do is play with their friends.

And is sad because giving skipping potions is not the solution. From my point of view not making each expansion independent was a mistake, why I mean by this? Simple, keep everything like it is today but once you hit 50 with a class you can jump right away to HW, continue with ARR or mix both if you feel like it. Same for everything else. Want to unlock everything from an expansion? Finish the relevant MSQ and side quests. Want to rush to the latest expansion to play with your friend? Go ahead, you can always continue with ARR/HW/SB later on!

Sadly I know is not going to happen because at times certain MSQ require to revisit locations from other expansions.

It would also severely limit the scope of the MSQ. Hard to tell a greater story when you are limited to a very episodic, self-contained, villain of the week format.

[Driavna]

It would also severely limit the scope of the MSQ. Hard to tell a greater story when you are limited to a very episodic, self-contained, villain of the week format.

You don't need to do that. MSQ can work just the same as today and have the same scope, some minor changes to avoid revisiting old areas is all the needed compromise but don't take the word "independent" literally. The difference is: once you hit level X you can move to the next if you want.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure is never going to happen and at some point, expansions will just come with a skip potion.

[Lersayil]

You don't need to do that. MSQ can work just the same as today and have the same scope. The difference is: once you hit level X you can move to the next if you want.

So keep the linear story telling... but make expansions skippable? Now I don't want to say thats ridiculous, but how would that even work? Out-level the expansion in question? Or like a skip potion? No one that cares even a teensy bit about the story would ever use this feature, as they would be utterly lost and skip over a large chunk of lore goodies.

I feel like repeating myself, but freely catering to the people that would outright skip to endgame might not be doing them much of a favour, given that current endgame content isn't really designed as a long term timesink like in other games.

EDIT: I just realized, but if you mean people accidently out-leveling the MSQ quests by a large margin, I think that only happens on the exp boosted shards, or by purposefully ignoring the MSQ for quite long stretches.

[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.

[galbsadi]

Maybe. 50 isn't really that daunting. Black Mage doesn't learn very much between level 1 and 60. It's essentially Fire I all the way. Paladin has one combo and one AoE button. Balancing healing and DPS on healers is a little more challenging, but nothing a tutorial couldn't help with. As it is, I've frequently recommended that new players level in PoTD when they ask for advice on what class to play. Low level doesn't reflect high level play and some new players just don't find the slow pace of skill acquisition interesting.

There might be some need for a level 1 option for players totally unfamiliar with a FF14 style game, but starting at level 50 isn't something that I consider putting novices in too deep.

To an experienced player, maybe not.

Black Mage at lv50 has a full rotation including shifting away from using Convert in favor of Ice3/Fire3 adjustments by that point, with Flare as a finisher. They also at that point have developed a full set of utility actions (some common to all casters, such as Manashift and Surecast, others specific to them, like Mana Ward).

Paladin at lv50 has their full threat combo, half of their DPS combo, one DPS AoEs, two threat AoEs, several defensive cooldowns (some common to all tanks, such as Anticipation and Rampart, some specific to them, like Bulwark and Sentinel), an offensive cooldown, two stances to apply in different situations, two stuns (one common to all tanks), and a couple of situational abilities.

Note, of course, that you chose to list just two classes as if everything is super-simple to a brand new player, so let's dig deeper:

Dragoons have their basic rotations in play by this point, along with multiple jumps, various utility, etc.

Monks have most of their rotations in play by this point, missing some oGCDs and Riddles.

Ninjas have probably 90% of their lv70 rotations by this point.

Scholars are missing some of their stronger heals (Indom, Excog, etc.), but are largely developed by this point.

Summoners have basically a full rotation at this point, sans trance/Bahamut (which really just build on this rotation anyhow).

Astrologians are pretty well developed at this level.

Bards are well developed at this level.

Dark Knights are well developed at this level.

I'd go as far as to wager that your argument that it's simple at that level largely stems from the fact that either (a) you're forgetting that new players might not be used to the systems this all builds on at this point or (b) you haven't actually leveled every class to this point or higher.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

This basically boils down to "if you don't like it, play something else." which isn't a position SE can afford to take if they're trying to attract the WoW crowd.
There are lots of people who want to play this game but don't want to sit through hours of story to play with their friends.

Maybe... Maybe the game doesnt need to cha ge to attract the WoW crowd. They can either stay playing WoW, or make an informed decision on their own. This game is doing fine, and if you start changing its core, it would alienate its own player base to attempt to attract players who like a different core.

[Terin]

The game definitely needs a questing overhaul.

I don't think "starting at level 50" is necessarily the best way to achieve that, though. Rather, I would go through the entire MSQ and remove as many quests as possible, that don't directly contribute to the story. Make them separate, standalone quests if need be. In addition, maybe consider adding a means of quick-traveling to your next quest giver, or at least for turning-in quests. Eliminate as much "running around" as possible, like I said, unless it's directly contributing to the story (just avoid cutting out characters entirely, where possible).

Personally, I might even go so far as to add a new "Starter area" entirely, which has a more expedited storyline. Maybe you start in Mor Dhona, your quests have you dealing with more of the "highlights" of the story, without getting bogged down in stuff that doesn't really matter (ie. Cid losing and regaining his memory; I really don't feel like that really added anything). That way, you can still choose a different starter area for the "classic" experience, but if you just want to catch up quickly, it just kind of gives you the cliffnotes version of the story.

As someone who recently got several people to join FFXIV, I definitely could see, they both have struggled to stay interested in the game. One of the two bought a level-boost and story-skip, and struggled to get used to the combat (because for him, MMO's are about "dungeons & raids" and he didn't want to spend weeks or months 'catching up'), and for the other, she followed suite but is now bummed she doesn't understand the story and can't really experience it unless she starts all over again (even the unending journal, it doesn't really give you context for the cutscenes that play out).

[Seraphor]

Maybe... Maybe the game doesnt need to cha ge to attract the WoW crowd. They can either stay playing WoW, or make an informed decision on their own. This game is doing fine, and if you start changing its core, it would alienate its own player base to attempt to attract players who like a different core.

But this isn't changing it's core, it isn't changing anything about the game. It's offering an ARR skip for free, once the game gets too big and there's too much story to slog through.

ARR is the worst part of the game. The quests are too long winded and vacuous, and there's far too many pointless ones, and you'd get to avoid the nonsense that is the Praetorium, if playing the story firsthand doesn't concern you.