Discuss : Have boosts been detrimental to the playerbase

[Kaurhz]

Well what is meaningful content? whats actually worth it?

The Lala in my Profile Pic is the 2nd char i did all the story all over again - and id gladly do it again if id had more time lol

This game is story focused, if people dont like it, its just not the right game. We really dont need those ppl who skip every cutscene, rush to endgame, finish the patch and return for the next even numbered Patch or even expansion...

Well that much obviously varies from player to player, but the fact remains that a vast majority of the content is locked behind an exorbitant amount of story.

Yes, well done, good for you I guess? It's a lot easier to do it, twice, three times or even four than what it is to do it for the first initial time when you don't have a fallback main character that you can simply whisk into a plethora of content to fill the void. A lot of players' only choice under this system would be to trudge through a few hundred hours of story to actually play with their friends in a lot of the games content. It's not a realistic expectation. This would be entirely different if the game did not lock everything behind the story.

I think you can like story-oriented games, but still take issue with the current predicament that this game is in, especially with how long the game itself has been running, and the amount of catchup that people are required to do. But whilst we're on the subject of saying "We really don't need those players" -- What this game could do a lot less with is players feeling like they have some dictatorial position on how others should or shouldn't consume the game for that matter.

[Rueby]

I leveled 11 characters manually with 4 in ShB and EW and the rest is in post ARR. I never boosted any.

But I also understand no one is as crazy as I am. I also understand there are people who only have limited amount of time to play the game due to work/irl stuff, and maybe they have money to skip all the tedium or have no interest in the story. This game is a nightmare if you try to speedrun or rush it- it literally works against you. If a player isn't interested in the MSQ and just wants to get to endgame to play with their friends....I feel like SE will lose potential customers there, and I guess there will be a barrier for people to get their friends in.

I'm not a huge fan of boosts and I don't think boosts should be just 10 levels only, perhaps 20 levels is fine....but eh. It's not aimed at me. I don't like it, but I know why it's there and I understand in this day and age not everyone has time.

[Boblawblah]

I think the real money cost of boosts discourages a lot of people from using them, which I think is good. The story is meant to be played, and if you want to skip it...

[TheMightyMollusk]

I haven't noticed boosted players who don't care to learn how to play being any worse than regular players who don't care to learn how to play.

[Asako]

Not an issue at all. To be honest most players are biscuits regardless if they boost or not. It's just the way the game is designed. There is no challenge even in casual content so there is no reason for the average player to improve. Honestly I'd take boosted players in my instances over people who played since level 1. There's a chance boosted players might actually read what their skills do.

Overall it doesn't really matter and I think trying to blame boosters is just sad really.

[PyurBlue]

Well what is meaningful content? whats actually worth it?

That's up to individual preference.

This game is story focused, if people dont like it, its just not the right game. We really dont need those ppl who skip every cutscene, rush to endgame, finish the patch and return for the next even numbered Patch or even expansion...

The story being mandatory is contributing to the rush to endgame to a degree. FF14 is a multiplayer game and the story seems to try as hard as possible to make playing with friends difficult. Loosening content restrictions may even be a good thing for story appreciation since people would only participate when they were willing to. You can make something mandatory, but that doesn't make enjoying it mandatory too.

[Arzalis]

I do think boosts are harmful, but not because of new players.

They're harmful because it financially incentivizes SE to never resolve the actual issues: it takes 300+ hours of MSQ or whatever to get the current content and the low level character experience is pretty poor.

They had actually claimed in the past they would eventually stop making each part of the story require the previous one, and this new expansion was the time to do that. It doesn't seem like they went through with that, and I'd wager the fact they sell story skips on the mogstation is at least part of the reason why.

FFXIV is getting harder and harder to get friends to play because it's a massive caveat to say like "you have to pay more money or play for hundreds of hours before we can really enjoy the new stuff together."

[Acelyn]

I think boosting pretty much kills the ability for players to be patient, it's probably helped lead us to this point where everything is just extremely easy to acquire, if you can't get through one of the best stories around, which is the legitimately easiest part of the game, then how can you handle relics, hard fights or anything else that takes a bit of time?

I mean sure there's content that's just fancier ways to acquire tomes and materials but the devs built systems and environments around them that was interesting enough to keep players going, aka hw relics which people still go for cause they look badass and eureka/bozja, although I consider eureka the better implementation.

But apparently that all took too long or was to darn complicated, probably because the stuff that used to season a player was skipped, so the devs pretty much gutted the middle tier of the game, said "use the tomes for whatever ya heathens" and just decided to make the game prettier instead.

Like, how do you even make a game better when all the new players are hellbent on blasting through it just to get to the end, see there isn't much and then complain?

[Arzalis]

I think boosting pretty much kills the ability for players to be patient, it's probably helped lead us to this point where everything is just extremely easy to acquire, if you can't get through one of the best stories around, which is the legitimately easiest part of the game, then how can you handle relics, hard fights or anything else that takes a bit of time?

I mean sure there's content that's just fancier ways to acquire tomes and materials but the devs built systems and environments around them that was interesting enough to keep players going, aka hw relics which people still go for cause they look badass and eureka/bozja, although I consider eureka the better implementation.

But apparently that all took too long or was to darn complicated, probably because the stuff that used to season a player was skipped, so the devs pretty much gutted the middle tier of the game, said "use the tomes for whatever ya heathens" and just decided to make the game prettier instead.

Like, how do you even make a game better when all the new players are hellbent on blasting through it just to get to the end, see there isn't much and then complain?

It's like 300 hours. It is way too long just to get to current content.

Making people play through 10 years of content in an MMO is a lot to ask, especially when the starting story stuff is middling at best for like 50-60 hours and the early game skills have been pared down so much.

[Ravenblade1979]

I been in this game 10 years. The use of those was for people's alts. However I've genuinely seen actual new players with way more skill who use those then players who been around longer.

I've also seen players who just aren't good at the class either.

As for story skip. Not everyone cares about the story.