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

[Saraide]

Yea please dont do that, I want more long running questlines. More references and connections to stories from older expansions. Not ripping it all out because it wouldnt make sense for new people. The void quest line after the shb rolequest is such a neat quest but because it's locked behind getting a job from each role to 80 it will forever be an obscure questline that gets a passing comment at most. Even when the 6.1 MSQ basically screams to ask beq lugg, unukalhai and taynor for advice.

An approach like this would do to the MSQ what is already being done to raid and trial questlines.

[Sotaris]

I don’t think they will, but eventually they will probably have to do something. A recap video or something.

[TheElvenQueen]

Just finished (I think) shadowbringer and haven't done a dungeon or any fights even for days now, just msq, talking talking talking, walking walking walking, teleporting around and watching cutscenes. No end in sight.
A true "EndWalker" experience...

[Asari5]

i mean... there is a lot of other stuff you can do to take a break from the msq

[znushu]

the fact that story skips exist in the mogstation and people are contempt in them existing and even use them already shows that OPs suggestion is going to become a reality in 7.0

[Zaniel]

Imagine not wanting to play the game you pay for as entertainment. Imagine treating content as a speed bump.

[Irenia]

I am amused that people think I want the skipped parts to be unclearable; rather I think they should stay available for people to clear at their leisure; there will still be content locked behind it, after all, and only one/two jobs can easily take the accelerated path.

I suppose the question is whether or not there is value in never deviating from the one long continuity strip, compared to designing a jump on point in the story. I feel that the world is strong enough to support a story that does not care what happened in SB through EW; there could be little side comments that has extra meaning if you played EW first, but the story itself does not need the support. And in that case, why not have an accelerated track to give players options?

This is, of course, assuming the new story featuring the Warrior of Light is not just a new chapter in their current story, haha.

[Jojoya]

They've said they know the length of the current MSQ is a barrier for many new players and they were discussing solutions for the problem. I suspect they already have something they're working on but they're not going to make any announcements until the FanFests for 7.0.

[Striker44]

Honestly, I didn't play World of Warcraft :P How did they deal with this? I know that you can sort of choose which expansion you want to deal with, but I assume some stuff is linear, like X character having Y development in one expansion and keeps growing from that into the other one.

World of Warcraft kinda...well...didn't. One of the more common criticisms I saw on their forums in more recent times was how utterly disjointed, confusing, and non-sensical the leveling experience could be for a truly new player, since you could in fact choose which expansion to level in. It meant you could sometimes be effectively going backward in time, the world could completely change in ways that could leave you lost, and since leveling itself was streamlined, you likely only needed a couple expansions worth of content to reach the latest xpac, so there were entire parts of the story that you just never saw, and then suddenly characters from them would show up in the current xpac acting as if you knew them well.

Frankly, I don't yet see a good method for allowing a "skip" without creating those kinds of problems. Fortunately, I think FFXIV has several advantages on that front. The story itself is actually important and engaging, rather than existing purely to get people to max level, so playing through the story is likely to result in fun and a good time for people who enjoy RPGs in general. There's also the level sync system that allows higher-level people to play with newer friends they might have without completely trivializing the material or making the newer player feel useless. And the endgame focus itself is very wide open rather than just being the "raid or die" mentality, so there's less "pressure" to get to max level as quickly as possible. There's plenty of other things and social events and the like that you can take part in at any point along the way.

[GeminiReed]

The void quest line after the shb rolequest is such a neat quest but because it's locked behind getting a job from each role to 80 it will forever be an obscure questline that gets a passing comment at most..

You also need to complete all the HW Extremes to unlock that sub story which is a bit of a shame since it's some neat lore.