The story is great, but it blatantly gets in the way of the rest of the game

[pikalovr]

there's a very simple solution to this for those that want to just play the "Game". cause at the end of the day it is still a game. have a level 15 quest that unlocks the duty finder for ARR after completing all the core dungeons trials etc... you revisit the NPC to unlock the next set of content rinse repeat for all the expansions (they can easily say since you did save the GCs fromt he garleans (you still have forced CS to watch for prae and the such and (you could potentially throw in short summaries of important events after certain dungeons that would only proc after completing the dungeon or trial for the first time but thats not what i would do tbh cause they may eventually want to go back and experience it in full cause all they know now is that they saved the GCs from the evil garleans trying to invade)) of course they would prolly add more ot this just using it as a placeholder for ideas sake. they hand you the quest to unlock your mount and join a GC/ability to join hunts unlocking that content and then grant you access to ishgard hearing that they're in need of help with a dragon problem (you being the hero for the GCs makes the most sense to send over) you go through the core HW dungeons/trials and return to the quest giver now in ishgard who hails you as the alliancer of man and dragon (again this can be worked on) (but he's heard news of rebellion groups in yanxia and ala mhigo against the garlemald presence there. you having already fought and won against the garleans think it's only right to head over and lend your assistance) complete the core dungeons/trials of SB then speak to the questgiver in kugane

this is honestly where my idea ends cause i can't really think of how you'd tie in STB to SHB (the only thing i can think of is you being summoned there and he crystal exarch being the "questgiver" for unlocking the SHB dungeons/raids) but my point is this is possible to do for at least 3 main parts of the story cause going purely through the dungeons/trials you can piece together a relatively basic story for each expansion in a vaccum and semi overarching like i said tying ARR to STB

of course when you unlock each new area you also unlock the NG+ for the previous expansion/ARR so if you so choose you can go back and experience the real story (which lets be real if you are here only for the "game" you'll prolly ignore anyways) but i digress while this may not be easy to implement it is a simple solution not only for those who want to straight skip to say end game but for those who want to skip parts they may consider more sloggy like post ARR just do the new core dungeons/trials it unlocks (which is more than fair imo) plus we already have systems in place to see if you've completed a dungeon before so there's no need to force a full redo of all dungeons/trials

[IdowhatIwant]

I would keep it simple, quest to 15, unlock the dungeons. At each level cap you unlock flying in that expansion's content and the next expansions dungeons. Once you are 80 you can start the EW quest line starting with the first quest released with the EW. This should also apply to all expansions actually, so if you get to SB for example and want to play through that you can.

Am I reading your suggestion correctly here? The answer is to, quite literally, rewrite the entire game to resolve the problems some new players have with content being gated behind the MSQ? How about we do away with the MSQ entirely? That'd certainly mean a much quicker run up to the so-called "End Game" so that people can enjoy two months of content every couple of years. And, while they're at it, they may as well remove all the earlier patch end-game content, since it's no longer current. Dungeons too. That'd certainly resolve the issue.

Yeah, it's a ridiculous read of the OP, and your comment, but it would certainly take care of the "New Players hate slogging through 8 years of content" argument that keeps cropping up. Of course, at that point I'd expect most of the playerbase to bail.

You don't really have to rewrite the story, just not gate things behind the story. It's not hard to do and really wouldn't ruin peoples experiences of the story specially if it was made optional. It's really dumb the way people don't think the game should cater to a better new player experience while they are literally reworking the trust system in every expansion to cater to players that prefer a single player experience.

[pikalovr]

I would keep it simple, quest to 15, unlock the dungeons. At each level cap you unlock flying in that expansion's content and the next expansions dungeons. Once you are 80 you can start the EW quest line starting with the first quest released with the EW. This should also apply to all expansions actually, so if you get to SB for example and want to play through that you can.

thats kinda what i was getting at with you unlocking the previous expansions NG+/ unlocking the next area it jumps your story position to the starting quest of the new expansion so when you skip post ARR and get to ishgard for example you have a new quest in the top left corner that show the first HW quest instead of whatever quest you were on

[IdowhatIwant]

thats kinda what i was getting at with you unlocking the previous expansions NG+/ unlocking the next area it jumps your story position to the starting quest of the new expansion so when you skip post ARR and get to ishgard for example you have a new quest in the top left corner that show the first HW quest instead of whatever quest you were on

Yeah I was kinda of summarizing it, and tacking on the flying, I would even say aetheryte crystals as well.
I doubt with out rewriting some sort of code, it would let you do the first HW quest while having an ARR MSQ quest. With how poorly designed this game is as a whole I would not be surprised if it caused some sort of flag that wouldn't allow you to pick up 2 MSQ quests, or cause some sort of issue allowing you to trigger the MSQ for HW. Which is why it should more or less maybe a per expansion option that starts with the first quest, and you can either not do the MSQ and grind how ever you want, or you can do the MSQ but you are in it to completion. That would be the lazy way to do it atleast, the correct way would be fix the problems that may be caused due to the flags, but that won't happen. We can't even get hats on bunnies yet.

[DPZ2]

You don't really have to rewrite the story, just not gate things behind the story. It's not hard to do and really wouldn't ruin peoples experiences of the story specially if it was made optional. It's really dumb the way people don't think the game should cater to a better new player experience while they are literally reworking the trust system in every expansion to cater to players that prefer a single player experience.

Considering the fact that the purpose behind the creation and continuing development of this game is the story, with dungeons and trials contributing to that story (not separated from the story like so many other MMOs), you are asking the developers to abandon the basis of the game in order to satisfy some supposed 'new player' experience.

Do you ask that of every game you play? Completely abandon the reason the game is different in order for it to better conform to what you think the game should be?

[DPZ2]

thats kinda what i was getting at with you unlocking the previous expansions NG+/ unlocking the next area it jumps your story position to the starting quest of the new expansion so when you skip post ARR and get to ishgard for example you have a new quest in the top left corner that show the first HW quest instead of whatever quest you were on

Um... you know that's what the Story Skip actually does, right?

[Skivvy]

Considering the fact that the purpose behind the creation and continuing development of this game is the story, with dungeons and trials contributing to that story (not separated from the story like so many other MMOs), you are asking the developers to abandon the basis of the game in order to satisfy some supposed 'new player' experience.

Do you ask that of every game you play? Completely abandon the reason the game is different in order for it to better conform to what you think the game should be?

Story is not the only thing that people play this game for. If that were the case, most people would simply unsub once they've gone through those tiny story-patches we get every so often. There is a lot of other content in this game that draws people to XIV, and I'm failing to see how making that more easily accessible could possibly be a bad thing for the game as a whole.

It is possible to keep a heavy story going in the game while allowing people options on how/when they jump into it. Yes, story skips exist, but IMO that's a cheap fix for SE being short-sighted in how they've handled the intertwining of the MSQ.

If we're looking at things that have been poorly implented in-game, I would rank the forced-MSQ up there with housing and Viera/Hroth.

[pikalovr]

Um... you know that's what the Story Skip actually does, right?

ah yes cause i should pay more on the fact i have a monthly subscription and paid a BASE PRICE for the game/expansion to get access to content i PAID for already i can understand paying to skip (or progress faster) in a F2P game but when you're already asking for money and then more money on top of that you have no right to be locking anything game related behind paywalls (yes cosmetics emotes and mounts etc.. i'd also debate against but it's not nearly as bad as most other games we've had before *cough* anthem *cough*. plus alot of the stuff is from in game events that do cycle through every now and again) (and no expansions should still cost money cause thats brand new content not stuff that was made years ago and they already bundle all of the older expansions in with the current expansion bundle so thats fine) if i want to skip straight to EW by PLAYING THE GAME. by golly i paid for the game so i'm going to skip to EW for free using a sped up leveling/content unlock system and not spending money on a story skip and level boost.

[DPZ2]

Story is not the only thing that people play this game for.
...
If we're looking at things that have been poorly implented in-game, I would rank the forced-MSQ up there with housing and Viera/Hroth.

While story isn't the only reason that people play this game, it is the primary reason the game was developed in the first place. It's what makes the game part of the Final Fantasy franchise.

Incorporating dungeons and trials into the story is another differentiator between this game and a lot of other MMOs. I can level without every hitting a single dungeon instance in so many other MMOs. I do not desire this game to be turned into one of the "so many other MMOs" since all of them are currently not experiencing anywhere near the same success as this one.

[Skivvy]

While story isn't the only reason that people play this game, it is the primary reason the game was developed in the first place. It's what makes the game part of the Final Fantasy franchise.

Incorporating dungeons and trials into the story is another differentiator between this game and a lot of other MMOs. I can level without every hitting a single dungeon instance in so many other MMOs. I do not desire this game to be turned into one of the "so many other MMOs" since all of them are currently not experiencing anywhere near the same success as this one.

My only real experience with the world of FF would be XI and XIV - both of SE's MMOs. I understand that storytelling is huge for the franchise, and I think there is even a quote from Yoshi floating around where he mentions wanting the story to play a big part (majorly paraphrased from a poor memory...I'd have to look it up), but they could have designed it in a way that allowed more freedom and choice for the players.

XI managed this by having mostly self-contained stories for each expansion. XIV took a different approach with its overarching story, but at the very least, I wish they would let people pick which expansion they start in so they can get to the content of their choosing quicker. Maybe something akin to NG+ where you can pick an expansion to play at any given time, while saving your progress if you switch to another story (NG+ does NOT save progress if you swap). That would mean some people are playing the story out of order, but I think that would be an OK decision to leave up to the individual players. It may be worth it for some people to get into current/whatever content they want quicker, while also having the option to go back to the start and enjoy the story from the beginning when it suits them best.