We should get exp boost in the game.

[Melichoir]

If story is the main appeal of this game, it's .... standard MMO stuff you are putting 90% of your time in and not the story.

Part of the FF series carries wtih it is the story aspects. I would personally argue that its a big part of the franchise. Is it Gone with the Wind, or War and Peace levels of literature greatness? Hell no. But so is a massive amount of art generally.

But people like it, and are drawn to it. If thats not your cup of tea, thats alright. It's the primary draw with secondary elements. Meaning, people came for the MSQ and FF series genre of story telling, and stuck around for other aspects teh game offers. As an anecdote for you, I like the MSQ and I look forward to the next part of the story, especially as of late with ShB. It's not the only thing that draws me to the game, but its a big part of it. I of course enjoy the end game stuff like raiding and dungeons and the like, but at the top of my list it's story. In fact, part of the reason why I liked WoW was for the story aspect, before it became obvious that theyre just digging up whatever so keep the franchise running - which might end up being the same fate as FFXIV, but atleast for the time being it feels like its going somewhere relevant.

Again, I'm sure there are way more people than you think, that don't care about MSQ playing this game right now at endgame, who have skipped everything or have experienced it all but simply don't like it. They're simply not on these forums which makes sense. I think many of them are high-end raiders too.

I know for a fact there are players like this. But how many is really up in the air. Among those who I engage with and what not, this is not the sentiment. They enjoy end game content and etc, but they did not skip the story and speak fairly positively of it.

What is probably closer to the truth is there probably is a sizeable chunk of the base who play the story in parts, and skip it in other parts - That is to say, if htey find a particular sequence in the story to be dragging on, they rush through it, but if it's engaging they play through it. And of course thats gonna have differences in how often its rushed vs played, but even then I would hazard that people typically play the story more than skip stuff particularly when xpac drops. Ive no proof, but neither do you. Were both operating on our personal perspectives in regards to this.

You might even be better off watching a crappy shounen anime if story is all you care about. The story isn't good on its own, it's gameplay and MMO mechanics that make it worthwhile (imagine putting FFXIV story into a novel or tv-show).

edit: also, consider nobody is arguing for less story or a major overhaul of this game's focus. People who like story, including me, will still have their precious story when there are means for people to skip it more easily. Then they might even be able to take more risks with the plot and don't need the story to be as accessible and cheesy as it is if they're no longer trying to interest EVERYONE (aka crappy but popular shounen anime).

Ive heard people specifically criticize FFXIV for its gameplay mechanics. There are positives, but a point that is brought up is how slow or boring classes are early on. Its got some merit, and the reasoning makes even more sense when you consider that some of this criticism comes from faster paced MMO systems (GW2 or WoW as examples). People who arent used to a GCD of 2.5 seconds and being limited in skills till pretty high up can make the game feel slow or clunky. It certainly does take some getting used to.

Same with boss fight mechanics and how that works. Now Im not saying its bad, but that it is different and once most people warm up to it, they end up enjoying it.

As for making MSQ bypassable - I covered this a few pages back. I feel its gonna have a knock on effect, less player cohesion with changing player expectations of how to treat the game. Making MSQ optional changes the games dynamics and how people interact with the game as a whole. Yes, you would probably see a spike in new players cause the MSQ wont be a turn off. But at the same time, youll likely also see player retention rates drop as players change their mindset. The draw is now optional. The leveling and play experience now becomes vastly different.

Consider this - you could effectively argue there is an MSQ for WoW, at least in terms of story. There is a long story thread you can play through that takes you through all the xpacs, all the zones, all the events that happen. How many people do that vs how many people just power through it and read the cliff notes a friend tells them about. Different models for different goals. That MSQ is optional, and the game and players treat it as such. This sticks in my mind most, but you can literally skip over a vast majority of WotLK story and Northrend. That is a great story...and you can just skip most of it cause you level so fast in your effort to get to end game content. As a result, the game doesnt treat you as anything but a bystandard watching stuff happen. You can go to the next xpac zone (Cata iirc) and the story immediately picks up again assuming you had some great part in it...when you didnt cause you never did any of that. I get that there is some level of immersion breaking cause Game mechanics trump story at times, but come on. In quite a real sense, you literally can become a "hero of the horde" and never done anything noteworthy to make you a hero. There in lies the trouble.

Give players the option to skip, focus changes to "get to end game" cause both the game and player base make that expection of you one way or another, and players will default to skipping that story content. I am not convinced that this is good for the game at large.

As a side note, I saw the suggestion you mentioned (sorry had missed it), but I feel that the issue with that is the peer pressure angle. New players will be told to turn on skip and just go back to the MSQ later, thus getting the same problem. If you give players the option with no push back or deterrence and it a path of least resistance, players will take that option. Jump potions exist, but the deterrent to them is the price point. Im not in favor of this approach, but I am also aware that every xpac added on creates a bigger potential hurdle for newer players. I unfortunately think that yes, either 'mini' Jump Potions or MSQ shortcuts/trimming like they got for 2.1-2.55 might be required at some point in time. Maybe the best option would be streamlining the MSQ in older xpacs some places. Less fetch, more story, as long as it feels cohesive and natural.

[Dfess]

Deus Ex, KotOR, Witcher 3, Thief and Planescape: Torment (off the top of my head) have entered the chat...

Mr. Contrarian being wrong, imagine my shock.

All these games you mention have a much better story than FFXIV.

[JohnSpawnVFX]

All these games you mention have a much better story than FFXIV.

And FFXIV has a better story than most other MMO's. Your point is?

I'm still waiting for your proof of XIV's unsustainability, btw.

[Dfess]

But the first dungeon is level 15! If you have played an mmo before and you're on a preferred world, that is probably something you could achieve in minutes.
Imagine if the game did allow you into an instance at level one, with no gear and only one button to press it would hardly be an exciting experience.

I'm sorry you aren't enjoying FFXIV but just because you and a handful of friends haven't found it fun doesn't mean there is anything wrong with the game itself. It's just not what you wanted.
You say want to skip to endgame (but only if you can do that for free), but it's quite likely you wouldn't enjoy that either. There is plenty of story at max level too, both MSQ and class/role quests. It's enjoyable for those of us who like the story but for you, I imagine it would be purgatory.

My guy...No one said enter a dungeon at level 1. We could not enter the dungeon at 15 because it was locked behind the story. They quit because they were being held behind the story. We were level 25 by the time we entered the first dungeon (because of road to 60) which was even more painful because we lost half of our abilities the moment we went into the dungeon. And if I didn't enjoy the game I wouldn't be here commenting on these. It's odd how people assume you don't enjoy the game when you criticize it. Every game has every right to be criticized. This game is no exception. Just because I have issues with the game doesn't mean I don't enjoy it.

As for people saying "Road to XX is enough exp." There are circumstances where you can't even enjoy the road to xx. Lets say you join the game because a friend recommened it. Cool they want you to be on their data center and server. But, their server isn't listed as one of the ones with the road to xx buff. Do you join another server? You could. Cross world play is now a thing. But you would never see your friend outside of cross world party and duty finder. Can't join the same guild or linkshells (only cross world linkshells). At that point you aren't really playing with your friend anymore. In WoW you can do all these things even join a guild cross-server if the server is directly connected to one another. This gives you more freedom on which servers you can choose. You people may not like this game being compared to WoW but that is this games main competition. You have to compare this game to WoW and BDO and even BnS. They are all competing for the same market of players.

[SamRF]

I didn't need to. I see your arguement for the facile, vacuous statement for what it is. "I think the story is overrated so i'm going to call it a shounen anime as if it is a pejorative". and "We don't want to take away what makes this game stands out from it's contemporaries, but we totally do and take one more step into creative homogeny that this genre suffers from".

I prefer my PC to be a Character, not a Toon.

Still waiting on those mythical "lots and lots" of people who are being "locked out of the game" by something that is already being fixed in the next patch by the way. You and TC both.

You can interpret it however you want and disagree with it but it doesn't mean that I'm being disingenuous, never asked for any game focus to be changed but rather having the option available so I don't know how that affects the game's creativity, maybe indirectly, I don't know. And again, this option would change nothing for me personally since I'd follow and enjoy the story as I've always done. I've made posts before related to story so take that as your proof.

Main reason why I want this option as much as I do is because of the complaints I've read about on MMO forums (not this one) and it annoys me that players have to wait as long as they had to before they can get into exciting combat and experience, it felt like a waste to lose out on those players just because of the slog of MSQ, and I've also got friends who quit soon after trying the game due to lack of exciting gameplay at lower levels. I realize however that if they could make you unlock abilities MUCH faster, to the point you have almost your whole kit at lvl 50, this wouldn't be as much of an issue.

Also not sure what you mean with "Still waiting.. " where are you waiting on them? Where do you expect them to show up? Not in the game since MSQ is still very much mandatory. No idea what you mean there.

[SamRF]

--

I get what you're saying and it sounds like good arguments and maybe you're right. I'm not entirely convinced that the whole game's mentality would change like that if it's an option that is off on default. You give the example of WoW, but that's just how WoW is and always has been, that's what their community is like and from my experience the WoW ingame story isn't as engaging as FFXIV's, the fact that you're just a random hero and pawn of the the important characters being a big factor probably. So it makes more sense to skip all that basically, however that's not how I played WoW, I actually halted my leveling just so I could still experience story from certain areas better, but I realize I'm probably in the minority for doing that. I'm not convinced the player mindset in FFXIV would change as much as is speculated cause this story focused mindset seems prevalent for FF community in general.

You know if you think about it, there may be other ways to battle this path of least resistance appeal problem. Instead of having the instance unlocking as a toggle, they could implement a system in which you'd have to farm from some kind of tokens by grinding dungeons or do other combat content, so you'd have to put effort before being allowed to skip MSQ. And to unlock content you'd have to then go to a specific person with the tokens you've earnt, who will then unlock X content for you. Make the grinding for tokens take longer than rushing and skipping trough MSQ manually perhaps.

[Jojoya]

Except you're wrong. The story isn't the pull for this game. The title is. Also, I accept that FFXIV is what it is but, it needs to change. What they have now is not sustainable in the market we have today. The only people who will continue playing are whales and hardcore fans. No new player is going to drop $60 on a game and then another $60 when they find out the game is locked behind a massive story. My friends quit because they couldn't jump into dungeons right away. Sure they are just a few people but they are the average mmo players. People like that don't stick around if they can't do what they want to do and are told they have to do it this way unless they are a massive fan of the franchise already.

Except I'm not wrong. The story is the pull for the game. I see new players all the time going "a friend told me this game has a great story so I decided to try it out". I see streamers who used to play other games, including WoW, say they decided to try FFXIV because some of their viewers recommended it for the story.

Just because it wasn't a pull for you doesn't mean it wasn't the pull for the majority of others.

What they have is completely sustainable. It's so sustainable that the active player base is almost double what it had been at the start of Stormblood. MMOs don't need the mega millions WoW had when WoW was at its best (and no longer has itself) to be sustainable.

Again, it's not sustainable to you because it's not what you want. It's still been working out great for what SE wants.

Stop thinking everyone wants only what you want because it's just not true. There's no game on the market that will satisfy everyone who plays games, nor is this game trying to be one.

[Enla]

Stop thinking everyone wants only what you want because it's just not true. There's no game on the market that will satisfy everyone who plays games, nor is this game trying to be one.

This. It's also in the attempt to appeal to everyone that games often end up appealing to no one. If FFXIV were losing subscribers left, right, and center I'd say people would have a case for demanding things be changed but we're still growing pretty steadily with no signs of slowly down. Until such time as subscriber numbers start plummeting the main structure of this game need not change. Now that doesn't mean little aspects of it couldn't be fixed up like with job dissatisfaction, though we're not opening up those cans of worms today, but in terms of how this game delivers it's content things don't need to change at present.

[Bacent]

I kind of stopped following along after the 'but in WoW I can do X'. Good for WoW. This isn't that.

[Melichoir]

I get what you're saying and it sounds like good arguments and maybe you're right. I'm not entirely convinced that the whole game's mentality would change like that if it's an option that is off on default. You give the example of WoW, but that's just how WoW is and always has been, that's what their community is like and from my experience the WoW ingame story isn't as engaging as FFXIV's, the fact that you're just a random hero and pawn of the the important characters being a big factor probably. So it makes more sense to skip all that basically, however that's not how I played WoW, I actually halted my leveling just so I could still experience story from certain areas better, but I realize I'm probably in the minority for doing that. I'm not convinced the player mindset in FFXIV would change as much as is speculated cause this story focused mindset seems prevalent for FF community in general.

You know if you think about it, there may be other ways to battle this path of least resistance appeal problem. Instead of having the instance unlocking as a toggle, they could implement a system in which you'd have to farm from some kind of tokens by grinding dungeons or do other combat content, so you'd have to put effort before being allowed to skip MSQ. And to unlock content you'd have to then go to a specific person with the tokens you've earnt, who will then unlock X content for you. Make the grinding for tokens take longer than rushing and skipping trough MSQ manually perhaps.

I dont think the mentality would switch over night. Itd probbaly take an xpac for it to swap, but it would be inevitable and once it happens, theres no going back. I just cant see it not happening if that model gets placed. I think a lot of players default to the path of least resistance. I think that it actually got worse in WoW when you no longer had to go to dungeons and the like, but just had to get to a certain level and then queue from the cities.

As for tokens, I dunno. That could work. Maybe Mini Jump potions or something. Youd have to play through MSQ up to maybe, I dunno, MSQ lvl 30 quest or something. Then you can get a chapter select function, where you can skip the next chapter of MSQ, get access to the dungeons but youll still be at lvl 30. And lets say theres only so many times you can do this in a period of time. Lets say you can skip 1 chapter every 2 days or something. So you cant just skip the MSQ entirely, and youre forced into doing something in the mean time to get experience and levels (Fate grinding, hunts, logs, etc). If you get to the next chapter and youre of level, then you can resume MSQ there. If you skip MSQ though, you lose that experience from the quests. You can replay it with the NG+ later if you want, but you forfeit the experience, gil, and items in doing so. It's a bit punishing in one light, but youre goal is "get to end game" it wont be that big a set back.

There are ways they could potentially make it work, but the goal I think to off set the 'WoW effect' would be incentivize MSQ as the best path forward, and give options for people who simply dont care for it.