MSQ Needs Further Condensing

[Kamatsu]

they trimmed the fat. there's no more fat to be trimmed, without affecting the meat itself.

See, to these ppl - that's the problem. too much meat. They want to bypass dinner and go straight to desert. IE bypass the story and get into repetitive grinding of the same dungeons, trials, and raids.... as a small percentage of MMO players want to do in MMO's. Read their comments and you'll see... they want MSQ either completely removed for them (ie 100% optional) or gutted for everyone... just so they can get to max level and grind away.

Yes they are a small percentage of the MMO gaming community, that has in too many games receieved abnormally high dev attention for their numbers.

Classic example is WoW - a classic 'raid' styled MMO, where the story (up till say the last 5? years) was completely ignorable and a big focus of dev's was, and is, on raids. Yet if you go back in time to Dev interviews and comments back in 2010-2012... you'll see that up to that point only around 7-8% of their active player base had ever stepped into a Raid. So a MMO that was so heavily raid-orientated... couldn't even get 10% of it's playerbase into these same raids that Dev's wpent a lot of time working on. This is why they were doing things such as moving the top raid from vanilla wow to the base raid in WotLK, working on and adding in "looking for raid", then tying in more and more story elements into the raiding system... to firstly encourage ppl into raiding, and when that didn't work... to force them to do at least parts of the LFR raids to be able to get through the expansions.

If a game such as WoW, a raid-centric MMO, has to use force to get ppl to raid... cuz less than 10% would do it otherwise, it says exactly how big the "rush to endgame and grind" playerbase it. These stat's in regards to raid players was backed up by comments from other games such as LotRO, STO & ST:TOR who all stated the % of players involved in their hardcore/endgame content was small.


As for the "Well, SE already cut some story down so it'll happen again" commentary - what they cut was parts of the MSQ that have been complained about for many years, by both story-driven/focused players and those less inclined to worry about the story. In fact, the sections they shortned are the only area's I've seen ppl stating it was a slog and should be removed/re-worked. So SE have done that... and without shitting over the story, doubt you'll see much more cut from the game.

Going back to the WoW / FFXIV comparison - While WoW pretty much stayed raid-focused (to the point of forcing it on ppl who didn't want to raid), XIV took a different angle. It focused more on the story, and everything else was additional stuff to appease the different taste's of the different players. Mostly story, with some dungeon/raid/trial grinding for those who did, PvP for those who did, glamor for those who wanted to be all pretty & such, crafting & MB for those types, etc.

Going on a personal anecdotal commentary here - I played WoW for just over 10 years. During that time I was a part of various different guilds on different servers. I was in 1 of the top raiding guilds that pushed for world 1st's come dungeon & raid releases (I was in the B/C team, so more casual raiding for me), as well as a few 'casual' guilds which just focused on playing, doing stuff we had fun with, etc.

The raiding guild was tiny in comparison to the social guilds. Our competitor raiding guilds were tiny as well. The social guilds had huge # of active players all doing various different things. Most were slowly working through the story, but some were focused on doing crafting, some were into doing RP (not ERP) stuff, some were just having fun grinding reps where possible without raids, some did do casual raiding, etc. They were hectic as hell with in-game chat going non-stop, multiple different channels on voice-chat for ppl... way, way, way bigger and more active and spread out in what they were doing in the game than the raiding guild.

We also had connections to other social guilds... which were all the same as ours - big, boisterous, full of ppl doing story, old dungeons, crafting, rp'ing, pvp, etc. It's bizarre when you consider it... here we were playing a supposed raid MMO... yet the vast majority of it's playerbase had absolutely no interest in raids.

Back to XIV - I see these threads come up now and again, and it's usually the same tired old arguments about "We just want to get to endgame without paying", as well as "SE should do this cuz there's HUGE amounts of ppl who would come play and they'd profit big time from it", etc. Always a vocal minority screeching for it.

You know what - I support you. Let SE add in a different sub - same cost as the current sub, so no quibbling about paying extra or such.. You pay that sub and no MSQ for you. You'll have every dungeon, trial, alliance raid and raid unlocked from the start. However you can *only* do these dungeons, trails, & raids with ppl on the alternative sub. You don't have to worry about subbing, you get access to all hubs in the game from the start... but can do no side-quest's, no beasttribe quest's... nothing PvE related other than grinding dungeons, trials, and raids with like-minded ppl.

[van_arn]

You know what - I support you. Let SE add in a different sub - same cost as the current sub, so no quibbling about paying extra or such.. You pay that sub and no MSQ for you. You'll have every dungeon, trial, alliance raid and raid unlocked from the start. However you can *only* do these dungeons, trails, & raids with ppl on the alternative sub. You don't have to worry about subbing, you get access to all hubs in the game from the start... but can do no side-quest's, no beasttribe quest's... nothing PvE related other than grinding dungeons, trials, and raids with like-minded ppl.

Asinine. There are plenty of people that skip to the current era, find out the story is actually pretty cool, and go back and catch up storywise.

Furthermore, when 2.0 launched the length of the MSQ was reasonable. It's now pretty much eight times longer, and it's slated to increase to nine when the new expansion drops.

That is too long to expect a new player to sit through before they get to the "good part." And yes, gameplay-wise, it takes that long to get to content that isn't nerfed intentionally or unintentionally by class changes over the years or too-generous stat sync.

It's extremely easy to lose perspective on just how long the MSQ is if you've kept up with it for a while. I don't say we should just dump people at the endgame, but there needs to be a way onboard players faster so they get to the "real" game within 30-40 hours that isn't a lazy copout of just skipping players with a potion.

A trilogy of books with an amazing ending isn't an amazing trilogy if most people can't suffer through to the end. The same concept applies to the MSQ, even though this is an MMO. Story is story, and a well-told story cannot be a well-told story if it overstays its welcome.

Abridgment for new players is mandatory with a story this long. Keep the full-length scenario in New Game+.

[ReynTime]

How is this game focused on end-game content? How many active players even do endgame? Most just finish the story then go level alt-jobs, farm easy mounts or do interior decorating.
Doing any tier of raid content synced is still a thing that can be done, and it's not much less fun than it was when it was new. Seeing as getting the highest ilvl gear is pointless due ilevel sync, I'm not sure why people who don't raid still care that much for endgame VS past content. Even the casual tome gear's relevance is questionable.

[LaylaTsarra]

I've leveled many characters and the best part of doing it is not having to deal with the end game tome/gear grind. To each their own though.

[Garnix]

IMO, they could at least make ARR skippable for free and add a summary cutscene. A 'The story so far' kind of thing.
Keep the paid skips for the expansions. Eventually a few years later, do the same for HW. Etc.
If they really don't want to make the ARR skip completely free, then simply don't make it available to free trial players.

[Reyketi]

See, to these ppl - that's the problem. too much meat. They want to bypass dinner and go straight to desert.

The MSQ can be likened to an undercooked porkchop.

There are varying qualities of meat.

I prefer filet mignon, as opposed to the undercooked porkchop.

Best Wishes

-Reyketi

[Theodric]

I think there's a lot of story elements that could be tweaked to be entirely optional without impacting the overall narrative. In single player RPG's - which FFXIV is often lauded as mimicking within this very thread - the player typically gets to choose which characters they choose to bond with over others. FFXIV has the unfortunate habit of shoving certain characters down the player's throat even if they do not care for them and would rather spend time with other characters who are no less important but get sidelined.

For example, I'd happily ditch any bonding with Alisae and G'raha. I don't care for either of them. If the narrative gave me more opportunities to bond with Hien or Thancred, however, I'd happily embrace them.

Equally, fetch quests have arguably just been replaced with repetitive chores along the lines of teaching children how to be adventurers. Something we've done many times in side quests and the MSQ's alike already. An option to just turn down such errands in favour of allowing the Warrior of Light to be 'strictly business' would be appreciated.

I'd also not be opposed to more dialogue options in general. The French version of the game typically has more nuanced, thoughtful commentary on offer for the Warrior of Light whilst the English localisation increasingly relies on 'sassy' commentary. Maybe there should be an English localisation and an American English localisation. I'd appreciate the former immensely, since there's quite a lot of cultural differences to consider.

[Lauront]

I think there's a lot of story elements that could be tweaked to be entirely optional without impacting the overall narrative. In single player RPG's - which FFXIV is often lauded as mimicking within this very thread - the player typically gets to choose which characters they choose to bond with over others. FFXIV has the unfortunate habit of shoving certain characters down the player's throat even if they do not care for them and would rather spend time with other characters who are no less important but get sidelined.

For example, I'd happily ditch any bonding with Alisae and G'raha. I don't care for either of them. If the narrative gave me more opportunities to bond with Hien or Thancred, however, I'd happily embrace them.

Equally, fetch quests have arguably just been replaced with repetitive chores along the lines of teaching children how to be adventurers. Something we've done many times in side quests and the MSQ's alike already. An option to just turn down such errands in favour of allowing the Warrior of Light to be 'strictly business' would be appreciated.

I'd also not be opposed to more dialogue options in general. The French version of the game typically has more nuanced, thoughtful commentary on offer for the Warrior of Light whilst the English localisation increasingly relies on 'sassy' commentary. Maybe there should be an English localisation and an American English localisation. I'd appreciate the former immensely, since there's quite a lot of cultural differences to consider.

I'd support that. I don't particularly like the English localisation in its current form and often it strips out nuances left in the other versions in favour of a more floral style. There's been several examples of this now for SHB.

[Garnix]

I think there's a lot of story elements that could be tweaked to be entirely optional without impacting the overall narrative. In single player RPG's - which FFXIV is often lauded as mimicking within this very thread - the player typically gets to choose which characters they choose to bond with over others. FFXIV has the unfortunate habit of shoving certain characters down the player's throat even if they do not care for them and would rather spend time with other characters who are no less important but get sidelined.

For example, I'd happily ditch any bonding with Alisae and G'raha. I don't care for either of them. If the narrative gave me more opportunities to bond with Hien or Thancred, however, I'd happily embrace them.

Well, in a lot of single player RPGs, this is true. However, in single player Final Fantasy, it isn't really. Stories and character interactions in Final Fantasy games have always been very linear and rarely ever presented any choice to the player...

[Theodric]

Well, in a lot of single player RPGs, this is true. However, in single player Final Fantasy, it isn't really. Stories and character interactions in Final Fantasy games have always been very linear and rarely ever presented any choice to the player...

In most single player Final Fantasy games, if a particular character annoyed me for whatever reason, I could usually shelve them outside of mandatory plot relevant events. I didn't use Quina in FFIX and I wasn't forced to outside of rare occasions. I didn't like Vaan in FFXII, so I ran with Basch, Ashe and Balthier when the game allowed me to do so.

In the end, the busywork of fetch quests has simply been replaced by the busywork of spending time with specific characters. It'd be fine if it was less biased, though I don't care for either Alisae or G'raha and recent patches have forced my character to interact with them when I do not wish to in ways that aren't even relevant to the overall plot. In fact, we're stuck playing babysitter at points where I'd much rather go digging for information.