FF14 players need to draw a line in the sand or watch the RPG get destroyed

[Arbaid]

"Endgame" is the bane of MMOs across the piece. But it's an inevitable consequence of progression, when there's no way that progress can ever be lost or eroded. But nowadays, the only concept people have of what an RPG is tinvolves "getting to levelcap" with varying amounts of storyfluff surrounding the route to that anticipated nirvana. RPG no longer means what it used to. "Role" means "Tank, DPS or Healer": your "job" in the game. Story, however well-realised, is done and gone, the first time you do the last climactic cut scene. After that, you're just stirring pixels and goofing around with your pals for the most part.

So that's what people expect to be doing. The "level grind" is just a means to the end of "gearing up for endgame raids", and even if taken at a legible pace, will only occupy a small percentage of the career of a single character, since the story is finite, but the "end game experience" seems to be amenable to infinite repetitiveness. However, adding more numbers and shiny looks is far, far easier and cheaper for development houses to do than create comprehensively varied stories that will keep your paying customer satisfied for as long as the good old endgame hamster wheel seems to be able to for many. That effort would take the budget and resources of a major production studio, or several, of the kind which produce TV programming (but with a slightly different focus at the technical/performance end). And the demographic isn't large/wealthy enough to support that.

So what does it matter if there's a "go straight to the end game. Do not bother with the story. Collect one set of gear." option? So long as the story is there for those who are here for it, and there are enough of them for the producer to justify the expense of producing it to their CFO, the story will remain. So less "line in the sand" and more "cheerlead for the story", no?

[Puremallace]

So what does it matter if there's a "go straight to the end game. Do not bother with the story. Collect one set of gear." option? So long as the story is there for those who are here for it, and there are enough of them for the producer to justify the expense of producing it to their CFO, the story will remain. So less "line in the sand" and more "cheerlead for the story", no?

Alright lets see a scenario where a MSQ skip button is added in game for these people that literally want to clear a raid tier, log off then log back in 6 months for the new tier.

The problem is the button is there for everyone else. So if you get to a horrible part of ARR then that big button starts to look really appealing. I can name parts of every expansion where that big red button would seem very important. Also how far ahead in the MSQ does it skip you? The entire expansion? 10 levels and you just get dropped in a story that makes no sense?!?!?

It sounds like such a simple request but altering the game like that causes very long term changes to the entire leveling experience for people. ALSOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO the MSQ is the main driver of why people even queue for instances so the poor bastards who choose not to skip all of a sudden get stuck in 1hr plus leveling queues. It breaks very fundamental parts about how the entire MMO is built.

I could easily see it being a required a feature 1 or 2 expansions into the future given the sheer length of the MSQ now + 4 more years of MSQ quest. This is a freight train headed towards FF14 that is going to collide one day so this critique is not invalid but asking that it be gutted so people can raid then quit until the next raid tier enrages me.

[Vahlnir]

Alright lets see a scenario where a MSQ skip button is added in game for these people that literally want to clear a raid tier, log off then log back in 6 months for the new tier.

The problem is the button is there for everyone else. So if you get to a horrible part of ARR then that big button starts to look really appealing. I can name parts of every expansion where that big red button would seem very important. Also how far ahead in the MSQ does it skip you? The entire expansion? 10 levels and you just get dropped in a story that makes no sense?!?!?

It sounds like such a simple request but altering the game like that causes very long term changes to the entire leveling experience for people. ALSOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO the MSQ is the main driver of why people even queue for instances so the poor bastards who choose not to skip all of a sudden get stuck in 1hr plus leveling queues. It breaks very fundamental parts about how the entire MMO is built.

I could easily see it being a required a feature 1 or 2 expansions into the future given the sheer length of the MSQ now + 4 more years of MSQ quest. This is a freight train headed towards FF14 that is going to collide one day so this critique is not invalid but asking that it be gutted so people can raid then quit until the next raid tier enrages me.

The thing is, the option for people to skip is already available, granted it's for real money. You are acting as if it's not a thing already when it...you know, is. However, I'd wager that most people don't use it, at least not for their mains.

[Veis_Alveare]

This is a freight train headed towards FF14 that is going to collide one day so this critique is not invalid but asking that it be gutted so people can raid then quit until the next raid tier enrages me.

It enrages you that some people enjoy the game in a different fashion from how you do?

What's the word again? It starts with a T and ends in oxic?

[Puremallace]

It enrages you that some people enjoy the game in a different fashion from how you do?

What's the word again? It starts with a T and ends in oxic?

Play it however you want but understand the consequences of what some are asking. It is easy to make general suggestions without thinking through how it guts a core aspect of the game. I remember in World of Warcraft where it took a very long time to level and you read the story with friends and then people wanted to raid end game because "that was the real endgame".

I watched not just World of Warcraft but Rift and also Aion gut there games to appeal to these people. After you gutted that experience then it became a competition between MMO's of who has the better end game. Once you agree to take out large sections of your MMO to appeal to a small unloyal playerbase then the people who remain are stuck with those changes.

Like others have said it is a FF14 game and story has always been a big thing. It is LITERALLY equivalent to asking for a Star Wars game with no space combat. It is asking for an absolutely massive core fundamental change to the game.

If you gut out having to unlock the dungeons and raids like these people want then the game turns into a MMO where you never need to leave the city for much of anything. Next up it would be gutting Retainer leveling because that is also inconvenient then after that leveling up Chocobos because that is inconvenient for these hard core raiders.

One minor change to some people cascades through huge sections of the game that they can care less about because once they clear the current tier they are gone for 6 months.

We are also talking about something so stupid it makes no sense because clicking and hitting escape from 1-50 or whatever is insanely quick. If it were up to these people content would release with nothing other then new raids with zero story or anything but a new challenge to knock down then move on to complain in another MMO.