Hot Take: The MSQ grind is too long and its harmful to expanding friend groups.

[TaleraRistain]

Honestly? Maybe this isn't the game for them. This game is not endgame focused. The journey is given a place of importance. If they only think the max level bleeding edge content is worthwhile, then this just may not be a game that's suitable for them.

SE provides the opportunity to skip this, but at a price. And that's a good thing because it maintains the idea that the journey is just as important as the destination.

[VelKallor]

FF 14 is not rush to endgame.

The journey is the key..not the end.

[ForctyusGold]

invest your time into game. i wonder, how long people will play when you could immediately hit max lvl. its mmorpg. yoshi is saying you dont need to pay sub for every month, but you should invest your time . if you cant, then play some offline or just not mmorpg o/

[SturmChurro]

Honestly? Maybe this isn't the game for them. This game is not endgame focused. The journey is given a place of importance. If they only think the max level bleeding edge content is worthwhile, then this just may not be a game that's suitable for them.

SE provides the opportunity to skip this, but at a price. And that's a good thing because it maintains the idea that the journey is just as important as the destination.

A lot of things open up at endgame, whether it be content, or something as simple as glamour, mounts, etc. If people played this game specifically for the story they'd either quit and only come back for patches and/or expansions, or make alts over and over to (somehow) enjoy it repeatedly. I think someone can enjoy the game with or without the story.

SE provides the "opportunity"? I do not think it's an "opportunity" to pay SE a decent portion of money just to skip past hundreds of hours of story, just to play the mmo aspect with friends. Them not providing other alternatives, other than a skip/boost, and with expansion after expansion making the trip to endgame longer and longer, is just one means of getting more money from players, in my opinion.

[Ranaku]

A lot of things open up at endgame, whether it be content, or something as simple as glamour, mounts, etc. If people played this game specifically for the story they'd either quit and only come back for patches and/or expansions, or make alts over and over to (somehow) enjoy it repeatedly. I think someone can enjoy the game with or without the story.

SE provides the "opportunity"? I do not think it's an "opportunity" to pay SE a decent portion of money just to skip past hundreds of hours of story, just to play the mmo aspect with friends. Them not providing other alternatives, other than a skip/boost, and with expansion after expansion making the trip to endgame longer and longer, is just one means of getting more money from players, in my opinion.

There is something called new game+ so...yeah...you don't have to create alts to relive the story.

AND...YOU...CAN...SKIP...CUTSCENES...AND...MOST...OF...THE...OPTIONAL...CONTENT. NOBODY...IS...FORCING...YOU...TO...DO...EVERY...BLUE...QUEST. IF...YOU...WANT...A...QUICK...WAY...TO...GET...TO...ENDGAME...THEN...BUY...A...BOOSTER. THAT...IS...FAIR...CAUSE...YOU...SKIP...ALSO...THE...TIME...WHICH...YOU...NATURALLY...WOULD...NEED...TO...REACH...THAT...LEVEL...IF...YOU...DON'T...BOOST.

Seriously not that hard to get, right? Boosters are fair, we pay sub fee and level our jobs etc. naturally so the boosters can also support the game with a fee that makes up for the sub fee they also skip with that boost.

Edit: Just to clarify, nobody is forcing players to play through the hundreds of hours of story. I leveled countless alts and if you skip every dialoge and cutscene you can easily get so endgame in mere days, sure it's still a grind but you don't have to deal with most of the story if you don't want to. It's not that hard to just push through it.

[Theodric]

MMO's, by their very nature, attract a wide variety of players. I think a vocal portion of the FFXIV community has a major issue with gatekeeping. If people don't care about the MSQ's, they're free to not care about the MSQ's. I don't think that means that they should be paying extra to catch up. I also do not think that it means that the game isn't for them - because there's plenty of things for people to do in the game that aren't tied to the MSQ's. I know people who only engage with gathering and crafting for the most part. I know some people who only partake of PvP. Others focus their time around leading hunt trains and so on and so forth.

Personally I used to care about the story a lot more than I do at present. Maybe it'll change in Endwalker, but so far there's been a sense of minimal meaningful consequence and excessive melodrama. I hope that changes - but I can easily see why some people really don't want to force themselves to go through a story they do not care for. I think that its decent as far as MMO's are concerned, but hardly the most amazing and deepest story ever told.

[SturmChurro]

There is something called new game+ so...yeah...you don't have to create alts to relive the story.

AND...YOU...CAN...SKIP...CUTSCENES...AND...MOST...OF...THE...OPTIONAL...CONTENT. NOBODY...IS...FORCING...YOU...TO...DO...EVERY...BLUE...QUEST. IF...YOU...WANT...A...QUICK...WAY...TO...GET...TO...ENDGAME...THEN...BUY...A...BOOSTER. THAT...IS...FAIR...CAUSE...YOU...SKIP...ALSO...THE...TIME...WHICH...YOU...NATURALLY...WOULD...NEED...TO...REACH...THAT...LEVEL...IF...YOU...DON'T...BOOST.

Seriously not that hard to get, right? Boosters are fair, we pay sub fee and level our jobs etc. naturally so the boosters can also support the game with a fee that makes up for the sub fee they also skip with that boost.

Yes, the game forces you to do most, if not all, blue quests, if a player wants to access most content and just because a player can skip the cutscene doesn't make the process much less lengthy, or make for a good new player experience. I don't think it's particularly helpful to just tell a new player to buy a skip/boost just to enjoy the game, nor do I think it's helpful to tell players that the game isn't for them, just because they want to skip through the MSQ. In some cases yeah, some games won't click for people, but I think this game has a lot of merit beyond the MSQ.

[Ranaku]

MMO's, by their very nature, attract a wide variety of players. I think a vocal portion of the FFXIV community has a major issue with gatekeeping. If people don't care about the MSQ's, they're free to not care about the MSQ's. I don't think that means that they should be paying extra to catch up. I also do not think that it means that the game isn't for them - because there's plenty of things for people to do in the game that aren't tied to the MSQ's. I know people who only engage with gathering and crafting for the most part. I know some people who only partake of PvP. Others focus their time around leading hunt trains and so on and so forth.

Wrong. We pay the sub fee to level our characters if we don't boost. If you do all the stuff it takes you months in sub fees. A booster basically skips that time which they would need to make their way up to endgame. They don't pay extra, lol. They pay what they would pay if they would do it the natural way. So it's fair that they pay "extra" cause they don't spend months enjoying the stuff we do, would be not that fair if we had to pay all the sub fees to reach endgame the natural way and others would have a free pass to endgame.

On the other hand i actually agree with you here, gatekeeping is stupid, if you don't enjoy the story just force your way through it or boost. I don't see any problems with boosters etc. besides the usual icemage that only casts icespells cause they are faster...had one of them in a dungeon and it was not fun...xD

[Ranaku]

Yes, the game forces you to do most, if not all, blue quests, if a player wants to access most content, and just because a player can skip the cutscene doesn't make the process much less lengthy, or make for a good new player experience. I don't think it's particularly helpful to just tell a new player to buy a skip/boost just to enjoy the game, nor do I think it's helpful to tell players that the game isn't for them, just because they want to skip through it. In some cases yeah, some games won't click for people, but I think this game has a lot of merit beyond the MSQ.

Are we playing the same game? Last time i checked all the hundreds of optional dungeons, ex trials and all that which are unlocked by blue quests aren't forced on players. You don't have to do them to progress, lol. The only blue questline that is mandatory is the msq questline and the crystal tower one. If you don't want to unlock a optional dungeon or raid or trial it doesn't mean anything for your endgame. You can go up to Shadowbringers, raid eden savage and you don't have to do the alexander raids, Omega, or coil etc. you don't have to unlock any of it to do your endgame.

So yeah i guess we are playing different games then. Cause it seems you aren't playing XIV.

[Vyrerus]

Let people skip just the plateaus at each previous level cap to accelerate MSQ progress

1) At each prior level cap plateau there is raiding that you can do. Each set of raids has their own progression related to the patches that came with those plateaus. You should actually have your friends take their time when they hit them. Instead of trying to rush through, they should team up with each other/you and raid at each plateau, and get a feeling for what the time in the game was like, as it pays dividends later, especially if done at least synced(minimum iLvl for closer approximation of the time they were current). They also have associated story in them to go with the high end gameplay.

2) It sounds like your "quite large" friend group doesn't have the right mentality for approaching FFXIV, and that they were misinformed somewhere when told that they needed to get to 80 to do raiding.

3) If you only use one job, and skip out on side things like PoTD, HoH, Bozja, and Eureka, then it takes roughly 290 hours give or take, plus queue times to get from creating a level 1 character to get to the very end of 5.55. This includes doing the normal mode raid tiers at each plateau (though add the gather time for Coil PF). This is also with watching every cutscene and ruminating on them/reading them slowly. If you skim read or skip disliked character's dialogue, then it goes by a little faster. Personally I wouldn't recommend skipping any of it, but if you had to have them skip something then it'd be HoH, PotD, Eureka/Bozja as those are grindy and samey and the least impactful storywise(though they have story and are a lot fun imo). So even with a full time job, even if you only give FFXIV 20 hours a week ( 2~3 hours a day, double on off days), then you'd hit hit 5.55 in just under 4 months. 8 years worth of story and raids and things in 4 months (at least all of the normal mode stuff, so all savages and extremes unlocked along the way).

If nothing else I hope that gives you a better perspective with which to suggest and cheer on your friends.