Discuss : Have boosts been detrimental to the playerbase

[Sjol]

If you think of expansions as separate games, then it's a requirement to play e.g., Mass Effect 1 before you play Mass Effect 2. While there are people who wouldn't dream of playing 2 before playing 1, it's not insane to just let people start with 2.

Asking someone to invest 300 hours before playing with friends is really difficult. No other medium has a requirement to consume earlier parts of the story before consuming current ones. Sometimes a summary of what happened is enough.

[ZiraZ]

I've always failed to see the point of a new player skipping to end-game, whats the end goal? to become a raid logger? That's depressing if so
Nothing stops friends from playing with each other using level sync content

[PyurBlue]

I've always failed to see the point of a new player skipping to end-game, whats the end goal? to become a raid logger? That's depressing if so
Nothing stops friends from playing with each other using level sync content

That didn't really work out in practice when I played through the game for the first time and level sync doesn't work on MSQ quests in the overworld while instances disable parties completely. You don't know when you're going to get a dungeon going through the MSQ and your friends may be busy doing something else when you do. It's not impossible to coordinate but there is nothing about the MSQ that makes it easy. As far as raid logging, the story is a one and done event and it's not going to keep everyone invested all of the time. Progressing further and finding more and more challenging content was the thing that convinced to spend more time with the game. You can't fix content issues by gating player progress.

Skipping doesn't prevent a player from experiencing the story anyway, especially now that NG+ exists. It just provides more flexibility as it allows players to engage in more content while progressing the story at their own pace if they choose to do it.

[Asako]

I've always failed to see the point of a new player skipping to end-game, whats the end goal? to become a raid logger? That's depressing if so
Nothing stops friends from playing with each other using level sync content

A lot of the time it's because they have heard of the game from their friends and want to play with them. Unfortuntately if you don't skip you can't play with them in the new game. Yes they are missing out on a lot but I'd rather play with my mates than play alone.

Personally the Story never bothered me anyway, been playing since ARR and I have skipped every cutscene. I couldn't care less about the story. Just give me good fights, good grinds and a load of nerds just running around playing together. Story to me is the worst part of the game. I just wanna get stuck in.

[Sjol]

I find the MSQ particularly antagonistic towards playing it in groups. Lack of shared progress, having to ungroup frequently, etc. It was one of my bigger frustrations in the game.

[TlachtgaSi]

I find the MSQ particularly antagonistic towards playing it in groups. Lack of shared progress, having to ungroup frequently, etc. It was one of my bigger frustrations in the game.

Not to mention it completely disrespects your time, and disrespects its own canon. How many quests could've been cropped down by everyone having a linkpearl and actually using it? This is how FF14 quest structure works at times.

"Bake a cake!"
- Get flour from the store
- Report to the chef
"Baking a cake!"
- Get eggs from the store
- Report to the chef
"Let's bake!"
- Get milk from the store
- Report to the chef
"Baker died of old age!"
- Buy a cake from the store
- Give it to his wife
"Oh I'm diabetic, you can have it"
Reward: Cake
Note: Quest's minor detail about the diabetic leads into another minor detail two expansions later where the wife asks for sugar in her tea and turns out to be an imposter.

Imagine just how many quests could be speedran or outright skipped if there was a hidden way to just give someone an item or just go to a specific spot and kick someone's head in. I mean, you could probably have hidden routes throughout the main quest that let you jump straight into the actually-important dungeons and trials and just murder the eikons and then rush the castrum, wham, bam, ARR done.

It sets up plot points later on

The Scions are trash characters and you know it.

[Minali]

Imo most of all we need proper tools for skippers to catch up. A very advanced and mandatory Hall of the Novice or so, so they get a crash course in mechanics and their job skills before being able to queue into any duty. Yes, not every body cares about the story, but by skipping to Lvl 80 (soon 90) you also skip any possibility for learning the gameplay whatsoever. And this results in duties full of people who stand in orange because they think the animation is the thing that matters. With healers who don't DPS at all. With tanks who keep attacking big groups of mobs with single target attacks and have Provoke as a pointless main part of their rotation and spin the boss like a fidget spinner.

I am a lore nerd, so I might find it sad if someone skips the story, but in the end it doesn't affect my game experience whatsoever. You do you, mate. We also got this journal thingy with 6.1 where you can look up brief details about people and places and all, not to mention the Unending Journey and NG+ should you skip and have regrets.
However, when someone buys the game, skips to 90, then runs to Narnia with their stack marker, eats uptime stacks like smarties and then rants and insults the party for being shitty because that's how they know things go in whatever other game they played before... This does affect my game experience, in a very negative way, and the one of the skipper as well. I can ask them if they'd like advice and teach them a few things, maybe throw a youtube link for a guide into their direction, but in the end the responsibility for teaching how to play the game lies with CBU3, with the game. If they include a thing like a skip to almost endgame level, they need to provide an option for skippers to get the necessary info to play at endgame level. As long as this doesn't happen I'd say yes, boosts are detrimental to some extent and create a bad experience for many (not all) people who buy a skip and for the people already playing. At least in my personal experience. And CBU3 is to blame, not the skippers.

[Moomba33]

We had this discussion long before they added the boost features.

Back then it was people who where leveling with Fates which had no idea how to play their job, then it was people who where leveling with Palace of the Dead and now we have the people who are using boosts.

It's a scapegoat.

People either want to learn how to play their job and spend the effort doing so - or not. What method they used for leveling doesn't really matter in the end.

Yup. If anything we had more bad players back in the day since classes were harder to play. I remember when Dark Knight came out in HW you'd often see players not using Darkside (a stance at the time) because they didn't want to deal with the mp management.

[ThaCa]

Boosts are almost irrelevant for the player skill when vast majority of the time leveling is spent on content so easy you don't need to use most of your buttons in first place.

[Arkdra]

Boosts are fine. Let people play how they want to play. I just assume most people I end up in groups with that are terrible are bad natively and not someone who skipped to the end and can't play.