I hope 7.0's has a way to skip most of the current story

[DixieBellOCE]

It would certainly be ideal to make 7.0 the start of a different "New Player Experience," but I feel like the only way that would work is if they also squish the levels down to a level 50 cap, with lvl 90s being lvl 45 at the start of the expansion. It would take a lot of "finagling" to get something like that done.

Also, more importantly, it'd cut into their story skip revenue.

no god no no squishes.

[Iscah]

Aside of not wanting to drop the current plot progress and rewind to Heavensward, that would do so many catastrophic things to continuity. The world has changed a massive amount in the time that the plot has played out, and trying to stage a second plot set within that earlier world and not reliant on any of the characters or world events since Heavensward would be a mess.

I would far sooner expect to see 7.0 written as an easy entry point to a new plot arc, but still starting at level 90 and continuing our current state of world events and character relationships (regardless of their prominence).

People would get the option to skip forward and start at this second entry point – whether permanently or as a once-per-account free "purchased skip" – but it's still clearly framed as them skipping ahead to start at a new plot arc in a pre-existing story. If they want to feel like they're starting at the beginning, then they have to start at the beginning in ARR; if they just want to get up to speed on the current part of the story, they can launch into season 2 and go back to play season 1 later.

[Neoyoshi]

I hope we aren't allowed to skip cutscenes.

[Amenara]

It would be nice if they did this. In FFXI, a new player could get up to a certain point in the story and begin the other expansions. The first 2 more or less continued the main story but Treasures of Aht Urghan took us to a whole separate part of the world and was only tangentially related to everything else going on in the main story.

It gets harder each expansion to recommend this game to new players when they have 100+ hours of MSQ to catch up. I'd like if new content could reference past stuff if you've done it, but it was its own thing that had nothing to do with Garlemald (unless there's yet another rogue legion doing their own thing), Ascians, or Ancients.

The other benefit of FFXI's story is you can do the stories more or less in any order. There are some requirements for your level and having to do portions of your cities story quest, but for the most part you can do them in whatever order you want. I think the biggest thing games like WoW and FFXI have storywise "over" FFXIV is that the expansions are pretty compartmentalized in that you don't necessarily need previous expansion's storylines to know what is currently going on. It also lets you jump around and experience what you want to vs being forced to go down the continuous story of FFXIV. I am not saying that one method is better than the other because as a whole I think FFXIV's story is good, but the other methods also have the benefit of introducing some choice in what the player can do.

[Midareyukki]

current players won't be affected because it would affect the entry point of new players.
So asking people who is current and have forgotten how long it took them to reach that point is not advisable.

I meant more in the execution. We who played the game will feel the impact of a transition if it's not done organically or at least somewhat linear.
What I meant was:
"Newer players will be confused because they're told the state of the world is as you'd expect 5 years after a massive dragon hatched out of its moon egg and had a temper tantrum, and then are given something else entirely if they decide to skip.
Older players will find it weird to go from a world that grew by building upon itself to a story that tries to ignore what happened a little so it can create a new plot."

[hagare]

Older players will find it weird to go from a world that grew by building upon itself to a story that tries to ignore what happened a little so it can create a new plot."

what makes you think they will go that route?
if they were going that route, they probably wouldn't be adding glossary and expanding journey.

[EtherialOne]

It gets harder each expansion to recommend this game to new players when they have 100+ hours of MSQ to catch up. I'd like if new content could reference past stuff if you've done it, but it was its own thing that had nothing to do with Garlemald (unless there's yet another rogue legion doing their own thing), Ascians, or Ancients.

There's a saying that if you'd like to catch fish, you should ask advice from a fish, not a fisherman. I came over to play at the recommendation of some friends from another game. They've been playing for a while and are all level 90 in multiple classes and jobs. My 30 days I received for buying the complete edition of the game end on Wednesday. And I've never played before.

I love most things about FFXIV. Great player base. Great roleplay community. Cute moogles. I love the dancer job. I could go on. But there's one problem and all the fun stuff (for me, anyway) is locked behind it. It's the MSQ. I'm part way through Heavensward. I had put in my credit card info to go ahead and prepay for six months when my 30 days end. And then a conversation yesterday prompted me to look ahead and see what I have yet to go. I added up how many quests in the MSQ I have remaining.

I have 562 MSQ quests yet to go. I expect they will take a lot longer than 100 hours, especially if I want to actually pay attention to the story and not skip them.

There is no universe in which I'm going to go through 562 quests just to catch up with my friends. I don't really feel good about buying a story skip either. I've never, not even once skipped the story in any other game. I found this thread while browsing the forums looking for some other idea. I'm pretty sure it doesn't exist, but I just thought I'd try because I think it's an amazing game if not for the MSQ.

If I were to suggest something to Square Enix, it would be this. Unlock most of the content. There are some things where it makes sense to have like a level lock. Advanced dungeons, for example. Or the need to complete earlier quests before the new one But wandering around collecting emotes? Just exploring the world? Roleplaying with others? Just exploring the world?

I cancelled the 6 month subscription that was setup to be paid. When my 30 days expire on Wednesday, I will be telling my friends to come back over to another game we used to play together if they want to see me. And that will be with much regret because there is so much that is so good about this game if it were not all locked away behind the MSQ. And I gotta admit that I'm rather upset that I bought the complete edition not knowing most of it would be locked away. So you can bet I'm recommending to my friends that they not bother trying FFXIV.

When Square Enix does something about the MSQ problem, I will be back with bells on. Because it's otherwise great.

That's what this bonafide newbie thinks.

[Rayne6665]

Nah. Fuck that. I enjoy paying attention throughout the entire storyline with japanese audio setting while eating snacks. i like to enjoy my cutscenes dammit.

[Tlamila]

I agree with this, except not sure about entry point. Depending on how it's managed, I think 7.0 itself could be a new entry point. I guess it's one of the reasons why I was hoping for a brand new cast and all, it'd feel like a better start.
Now, don't only think about the amount of msq we have now, which is still colossal for a new player. Think about the fact that they plan to go on another 10 years. Think the current length of the story but doubled. Imagine someone starting fresh and having to go through all that before getting to endgame. And no, skips are not a valid option.
I understand that having to go through several months of msq (or even years depending on how many hours a week you can play and your reading/rpogression speed) is good for people who only come to this game for a single-player experience and then stop until next bit of story, but for people who care about the multiplayer part it's...a lot. And I think ultimately too much main story in a mmo makes people more likely to buy skips or skip cinematics, rather than just enjoying it, and that's bad.

Now, we don't even know how it's gonna work for levels, we don't know if they'll go on with 100+, which also seems a bit crazy, or they'll stop at 90, or at 100, or they'll squish or whatever. It could be something like RO where after 99 you're reborn and you start back at 1 but stronger, but that doesn't seem very FF.

As for the: missing previous events would make the story not make sense.
Most of us also didn't do 1.0 and we missed a chunk of story with some important events. And as someone said, they're making all those entry things exactly for such a situation of "catching up". Plus, if 7.0 really becomes a new start to an entirely new chapter, it should be able to stand on its own legs without needing to have played through the rest if not for maybe a summary of world events. Just like you can play certain games of the same series without having played the previous. At least that's my hope and it would make sense, since Yoshida did mention before about a new possible entry point or something.

And I agree that nobody here has a personal interest in things going on way or the other, since I think almostall of us are well caught up with msq. Hell, I'm caught up with msq on multple characters. But gotta think of new players, and honestly this game lives more off new players than off veterans (kinda sadly tbh).

[DixieBellOCE]

Yes lets chop the games linear story up so that people have 0 clue wtf is happening.

just look what happened when world of warcraft did it, nobody knows the story now, its all so disjointed and fundamentally broken that nothing makes sense.