The new player experience and how FFXIV fails as an MMO.

[Gyson]

Is anyone asking for that? The issue keeps getting framed as a binary one where the story has to overshadow every other part of the game or it has to be irrelevant. Those are only the most extreme options. The length of the story stops having downsides when it stops interfering with the MMO side of the game. I also don't see any benefit to making the story required when it comes to player interest. If anything, letting the player choose when to engage with the story should lead to the least burnout because there are no competing goals like trying to catch up with friends.

Going back and changing the structure of the game from ARR to DT would be a lot of work so there might not be many feasible ways to make changes there, but the future is an open book and I think the game could benefit a lot from allowing more player freedom and interaction.

But you know the formula - the introduction of new (especially leveling dungeons) are usually woven into the story, which provides players with the option of running them with NPCs who are part of the story (and a reason for those NPCs to be there). What you're essentially asking for is to have that content separated from the story, which in turn will make the experience worse for those players who do enjoy the story. Or you're asking the developers to create twice as many dungeons so players can level and gear up via the story route or a non-story route, and I doubt that is feasible under their current development schedule given that they already seem to be struggling with their pace.

A story-skip option is available for those who want to catch up to the current expansion, and while I would never use one it seems like the entire effort to wrap a bow on the previous 10-year story was at least in part to provide potential players with a new starting point to jump to. And if they do and discover they actually like the current story they can always tackle the previous expansions at their leisure through the New Game Plus feature. It's not the perfect way to digest an MMO, but it's a pretty decent option, and one that is available *right now* without shaking up the formula in unwanted ways for long-time players who have actually enjoyed the design from the last ten years.

Between Endwalker closing off the last ten years, Dawntrail starting a new adventure, the New Game Plus feature and the story skip option all being available now, there has never been a better time to bring new friends into the game who have been holding back because they didn't want to progress through multiple expansions to reach the end-game. Can we at least agree on that?