Maybe a Side Content Warning...?

[Aidorouge]

I don't see the issue with making the Crystal Tower mandatory in the game. It's a very important part of the game's lore. Without knowing about what it is and what happens in there, you have no idea what it's doing in Shadowbringers.

That's assuming they even make it to Shadowbringers because they got stuck in Realm Reborn because of, you guessed it, Crystal Tower.

I don't know how it is on other data centers/worlds, but Crystal Tower was THE #1 killer of a sprout's investment in continuing when I was on Dynamis because they either didn't like the idea of being forced into doing 24-man content for any number of reasons, or if they were willing to give it a try, they quickly got frustrated/lost interest when it would take hours to find even just 12 people for Labyrinth of the Ancients unsync. Given that Dynamis is the data center Square-Enix keeps trying to funnel new players into, you can imagine what kind of impression its leaving on them to think that the game is dead and nobody wants to do a crucial part of its mandatory content. MSQ trials were also a constant throttle, including for myself, where I spent 4 months (non-consecutively) trying to get past various ones with Seat of Sacrifice taking a whole month by its self because it simply would not pop on its own, and PFs never had any takers. (And I'm including my attempts to get it done outside of Dynamis too.)

It's the same reason why anyone saying ALL alliance raids should be mandatory just wants the game to die off faster, because there's always going to be "that one series" someone hates or has zero interest in. For me it would be Nier, where if you told me I HAD to clear it to leave Shadowbringers, then I would just never leave Shadowbringers, and would have eventually quit after I got tired of being permanently stuck.

[FuturePastNow]

They shouldn't be afraid to leave behind players who are incurious or unwilling to do major side content, if including characters from those stories makes the MSQ better. They can either do it, or read a synopsis, or not, I don't care.

[RedLolly]

I think calling out Dynamis is a little irrelevant. I'm on Lamia. I can get CT in 5 to 10 minutes on my level 100 character on any job, even tank.

CT being a newbie killer is more a reflection of how bad Dynamis is in general. How many random mid to late game trials are run killers there after getting through the wall that is CT?

It's a symptom to another problem.

[Alicie]

No, it was not badly received. In fact, players petitioned for them to make it mandatory because it wasn't, and they merely complied with that popular request.

It was very badly received, nobody was happy about few extra hours of mandatory boring story slop

[RedLolly]

It was very badly received, nobody was happy about few extra hours of mandatory boring story slop

"Boring story slop."

You can be pro-story skipping without being an jerk about it. And you're also wrong? Most players in ShB were pushing doing CT on others just because of how vital it is to understand all of the details and to unlock the hidden scenes, and the general opinion was positive and that there was a massive jump in quality from Stormblood. 5.3 adding the requirement of CT was basically a non-issue since it was such a beloved update, everyone was being told to do it, anyway, and was the first major patch after a Covid delay.

It's only an issue now because the content is so outdated and repetitive.

[Aidorouge]

I think calling out Dynamis is a little irrelevant. I'm on Lamia. I can get CT in 5 to 10 minutes on my level 100 character on any job, even tank.

CT being a newbie killer is more a reflection of how bad Dynamis is in general. How many random mid to late game trials are run killers there after getting through the wall that is CT?

It's a symptom to another problem.

Based on what I would see in the PF, these were the most common requests for Trial assistance in my 3 years of playing over there, even if some of them are entirely optional.

ARR: Titan, Leviathan, Nabriales, Gilgamesh (both, but 2nd fight moreso than the 1st), Ultros & Typhon, Odin

HW: Bismarck, Nidhogg, Sophia, Zurvan

STB: Susano, Shinryu, Tsukuyomi, Rathalos, Yojimbo

SHB: Hades, Warrior of Light, Ruby Weapon, Emerald Weapon

Keep in mind some of these are impossible for someone to solo unsync due to mechanics so one can't just cheese through them no matter how high their level or gear is. I also assume the reason some people struggled to do even the ones that CAN be done unsync is because they kept dying on a one-shot-kill mechanic and not being able to figure out what to do, or because they couldn't meet the DPS check for another mechanic. Warrior of Light is especially damning because you MUST bring a full party with 1 tank and 1 healer being further required. I had the First being in a perpetual Starshower for lord knows how long because the weather is permanent until you finish Seat of Sacrifice.

I myself got stuck on Susano, Hades, Warrior of Light, and Ruby Weapon for months on end and various points, which contributed heavily to my dislike of Shadowbringers as a whole with Crystal Tower just being the beginning of my problems with that expansion apparently... to say nothing of how I just ended up hating G'raha when it was all said and done because its quite literally his fault I had to do Crystal Tower and got stuck on the First to begin with.

[RedLolly]

Snip

That... Explains so much. Wow.

I played CT when it was on content waaaaay back and played through ShB during that 5.25 gap of time. So my experience was ENTIRELY different.

Glancing your list initially read as "everything," as in required stuff, but it's clear players are trying to do the available content, MSQ or side quests, as intended but are marred by how dead Dynamis is to other data centers and give up. I really considered moving there for housing.

Ugh. The servers need to be rolled into the other centers last month. I am so sorry you amd other players have to deal with that.

[StriderShinryu]

Given that we do already have the in game lore compendium thing, this really does feel like an obvious change. Have a basic entry appear giving a brief overview of the person/place/event/etc. with a pointer towards where you can "learn more" (aka what quests to do) and then have that entry fill in properly when you've done the content. I can understand that there's a lot of heavy lifting for a new player to do to pick up with, say, anything to do with the 13th and the source at this point.. but that doesn't mean the players who have done it all (and the writers who crafted those stories in the first place) should be locked out of obvious/required story developments.

[KihyiFelhede]

They should just use the characters in the MSQ and assume that the WoL already met them at that time, with a message saying that "You've met this character before, play (this content) to find out more" if the player hasn't. If someone wants to they can look into it, if they don't ah well.

Ehhhh imo it depends. I think to a lower degree it's ok to introduce some things with the story progression branching dialogue (e.g. meeting Estinien in dragoon quests). Otherwise I think there's two main issues. 1) Depending on the wording of the message, players might assume it's just easter eggs/optional branching dialogue and they can always come back to it later because they won't be missing anything important. They should really begin pushing for players to start on that content before the patch drops, which leads to my next point. 2) Though I definitely see how CT has heavily biased roulettes, there is still the issue of optional content taking too long to fill up. Someone mentioned 24-mans on Dynamis, but I'm on Aether and it took me on average 30 mins during peak hour as tank/DPS to queue for shadow of mhach for the first time a few months ago. Without mandating side content they'll have to find a really good incentive for players to return to older, low-level stuff they haven't done yet, especially for people that skip story. And, unfortunately as we've all seen with Dynamis, I don't have much faith in whatever incentives they decide on if any outside of story content and raid gear. Optional content taking too long isn't exactly a sprout killer, as they'll just continue with MSQ, but they'll still lose out on that part of the content. I don't have a perfect solution, but I am generally in favor of freeing side content characters from their story limbo. (Plus, this thread reminded me that I really have to finish warring triad...)

[Jaltaer]

Glancing your list initially read as "everything," as in required stuff, but it's clear players are trying to do the available content, MSQ or side quests, as intended but are marred by how dead Dynamis is to other data centers and give up. I really considered moving there for housing.

I mean, at this point Dynamis players are doing it to themselves. If the bulk of them actually stayed on their DC rather than camping out on Aether or elsewhere just to do dailies, people would be able to actually get their queues to pop. If they changed DC travel tomorrow to lock Travelers out of using Duty Roulette, Dynamis would probably actually see some activity.