Confirmed: ARR campaign will be pruned

[Nicodemus_Mercy]

They don't even necessarily need to remove quests from that 100 quest dash to HW, they could simply turn them into side quests so they aren't required as part of the MSQ.

[Wanzzo]

My contributions as well:

- please, remove that time waster for a Roegadyn that make us loose time before the company of Heroes part. And adjust the quests from the members of the old Company of Heroes to fit 3 to 4 quests only (maybe one quest for each of them that involves a tough fight and not one billion quests for each of them as we have now) or erase all these quests.

- on the sylphs arc of quests they should consider reducing the meaninless ones to be erased as well. I think all the sylphs quests could be fit inside 8 to 10 quests only (including the end of Toto-rak). The quests like: "bring mushrooms for them in order to promote a good relation between us and them" is a waste of time, since we already danced to them and gave them a milkroot (or whatever is the right name). The same goes on that one after Toto-rak when we are invited to see the "touched ones" from afar.

- remove the necessity to do Aurum Vale and Dzemael Darkhold again on the GC company quests in order to progress through the GC ranks. Yes, i know this is not msq, but everyone do those dungeons twice loosing time. The first time is when we open them in DF.

- And would be nice if we be able to skip cutscenes inside Praetorium and Castrum Meridianum again. I know those are for immersion and represents the climax of the end of ARR. But, back when we was able to skip those cs, we had a lot of fun and watched them after in the Never End Journal or did it again with a bunch of people who didn't care to wait for the cs. We lost almost 1 1/2 hours everytime we enter those places...

[Verlyn]

There is no solution that will make 100% of players happy here. Just make all the MSQ prior to Shadowbringers (or indeed, whatever the current expac is) optional and let people suffer ARR at their own pace. You'll find people become a lot more tolerant of something's flaws when it isn't acting as a barrier to the rest of the game that they feel pressure to rush through.

Not to mention, condensing ARR is only a short-term solution. Every expansion and every major patch adds new story, heaping on the hours new players need to devote to reach content the playerbase (and their friends) is active in and they are hyped about. This is a problem unique to this game, because other MMOs simply don't care where you are in the story before you do content.

Condensing every single MSQ up to the latest is simply not a viable option. Divorcing it from game progression and letting people enjoy it at their own pace should be a good compromise as it doesn't involve chopping the MSQ up.

[Ayuhra]

There is no solution that will make 100% of players happy here. Just make all the MSQ prior to Shadowbringers (or indeed, whatever the current expac is) optional and let people suffer ARR at their own pace. You'll find people become a lot more tolerant of something's flaws when it isn't acting as a barrier to the rest of the game that they feel pressure to rush through.

Not to mention, condensing ARR is only a short-term solution. Every expansion and every major patch adds new story, heaping on the hours new players need to devote to reach content the playerbase (and their friends) is active in and they are hyped about. This is a problem unique to this game, because other MMOs simply don't care where you are in the story before you do content.

Condensing every single MSQ up to the latest is simply not a viable option. Divorcing it from game progression and letting people enjoy it at their own pace should be a good compromise as it doesn't involve chopping the MSQ up.

I don't think every MSQ needs to be pruned. ARR they were still trying to figure out where they wanted to go. The pacing is noticeably worse then even Heavensward's (Heavensward had the Moogles but the rest was mostly fine).

ARR has been in desperate need of a pacing fix for a while.

[Verlyn]

I don't think every MSQ needs to be pruned. ARR they were still trying to figure out where they wanted to go. The pacing is noticeably worse then even Heavensward's (Heavensward had the Moogles but the rest was mostly fine).

ARR has been in desperate need of a pacing fix for a while.

I mean that's true, but it's ultimately a temporary solution. Think about it:
Right now we have about 300ish hours of story easy before you reach current content. Say ARR is pruned and that cuts its to about 200 hours. Nice! Then Shadowbringers patches add another 30 or so total. Then the next expac adds another 60. Now we're back up to 300 hours again and the problem of new player retention rears its ugly head once more. Because honestly; while Heavensward on improves so much in the pacing and story department, it never goes the 100% to fix issues that have plagued the story since ARR.

We see players get farther before giving up, but burnout after running so much story at once, under pressure, is still a thing. So we start seeing complaints about all new quests and pacing problems pop up, and people start clamoring for pruning Heavensward. Now it's become a cycle.

And I guarantee people will go through the pruned ARR and complain about the story they lost. Don't tell me they won't; this thread is full of posts pointing out how necessary any minor quests A, B and C are to the overall narrative. It'll happen.

So it ends up being a ton of dev time and money spent kicking the can down the road. Simply making the MSQ optional will cause a lot of complaining too--I know this well--but it at least ensures the core problem doesn't come up again, and as a bonus it doesn't require any pruning at all.

[DynnDiablos]

I really enjoyed the ARR MSQ, so not sure what all the complaints are about. I was engaged with it most of the time.

[DynnDiablos]

I mean that's true, but it's ultimately a temporary solution. Think about it:
Right now we have about 300ish hours of story easy before you reach current content. Say ARR is pruned and that cuts its to about 200 hours. Nice! Then Shadowbringers patches add another 30 or so total. Then the next expac adds another 60. Now we're back up to 300 hours again and the problem of new player retention rears its ugly head once more. Because honestly; while Heavensward on improves so much in the pacing and story department, it never goes the 100% to fix issues that have plagued the story since ARR. We see players are getting farther before giving up, but burnout after running so much story at once, under pressure, is still a thing. We start seeing complaints about all new quests and pacing problems and people start clamoring for pruning Heavensward. Now it's become a cycle.

And I guarantee people will go through the pruned ARR and complain about the story they lost. Don't tell me they won't; this thread is full of posts pointing out how necessary any minor quests A, B and C are to the overall narrative. It'll happen.

So it ends up being a ton of dev time and money spent kicking the can down the road. Simply making the MSQ optional will cause a lot of complaining too--I know this well--but it at least ensures the core problem doesn't come up again, and as a bonus it doesn't require any pruning at all.

Honestly, I don't know why people are playing FFXIV if they don't like story-based games. The game is a story-driven RPG. Yes, it is an MMO but the story is the main driving force. If they start simplifying the story and streamlining MSQ's where they are 8 hours or less, I truly will not be interested anymore.

[DynnDiablos]

My contributions as well:

- please, remove that time waster for a Roegadyn that make us loose time before the company of Heroes part. And adjust the quests from the members of the old Company of Heroes to fit 3 to 4 quests only (maybe one quest for each of them that involves a tough fight and not one billion quests for each of them as we have now) or erase all these quests.

- on the sylphs arc of quests they should consider reducing the meaninless ones to be erased as well. I think all the sylphs quests could be fit inside 8 to 10 quests only (including the end of Toto-rak). The quests like: "bring mushrooms for them in order to promote a good relation between us and them" is a waste of time, since we already danced to them and gave them a milkroot (or whatever is the right name). The same goes on that one after Toto-rak when we are invited to see the "touched ones" from afar.

- remove the necessity to do Aurum Vale and Dzemael Darkhold again on the GC company quests in order to progress through the GC ranks. Yes, i know this is not msq, but everyone do those dungeons twice loosing time. The first time is when we open them in DF.

- And would be nice if we be able to skip cutscenes inside Praetorium and Castrum Meridianum again. I know those are for immersion and represents the climax of the end of ARR. But, back when we was able to skip those cs, we had a lot of fun and watched them after in the Never End Journal or did it again with a bunch of people who didn't care to wait for the cs. We lost almost 1 1/2 hours everytime we enter those places...

If they did this they would remove the XP bonus and people would freak out. I personally love the getting anywhere from 9-15 million XP because it makes leveling jobs super quick.

[Allooutrick]

I'm in favor of this. I joined the game after Stormblood and decided to do all of the story from the start. It took so long to catch up that I began skipping all cut scenes and any content that wasnt related to dungeons. If I recall correctly, it took my over 9 days of game time... Over 200 hours of skipping story to get into stormblood. Now I attribute a big reason to my love of taking a game slowly and also switching to a new main most of the way through. I would imagine it would take new players the same amount of time, give or take 100 hours.

[LineageRazor]

Titan is typically the first example trotted out when folks talk about compacting the MSQ, but there's a couple important things that quest does. First off, it unlocks Braflox's Longstop. Secondly, it shows you what Primal hunting is like for folks who DON'T have the Echo to protect them. The whole reason you're doing all these quests, is the various members of the previous Titan squad want to test you to make sure you've got the stuff to take on a Primal, and in the process you learn how horrendous and serious it can be. In addition to these key points, you learn about Sunseeker Miqo'te customs. You learn that Beastmen can be heroic adventurers alongside the human races. You meet a Garlean deserter, and learn the horrible things the Garleans do to them and their families. Maybe you could do without meeting Trachtoum and learning of his conquest over the dread primal "Tidus", but I'd guess that for many that was a favorite moment.

I hope that if SE condenses this, they're able to keep the lessons and world-building the quests provided.