Unlocking Content

[Soralis]

it won't happen op. too much people here are ff lore lovers, and ffxiv strong side is the story, so your thread is futile sorry, i never skipped them the 1st time, let everyone wait, if they are mad than let them kick me i will go again and see the cutscene, that is why fc is for.

[Peachy]

The negative people are always the loudest. A lot of you need to learn to speak for yourselves. Claiming that most end game players dont care about the story, only caring about gear and the next raid? Im guessing you got that idea from the last f2p piece of crap you played that doesnt have any dialog worth reading. I raid 4 times a week, always trying to get the best gear, but story has and always will be the biggest thing for me in this game. I doubt I wouldve cared to do coil if there wasnt an interesting back story. I doubt Id even still be playing if it was your generic MMO raid system.

As a side note, I tried TERA lately out of boredom and waiting for HW, that game has terrible cutscenes and dialog, and yes it seems almost every player is in it for loot and dungeon runs, it might as well be a vindictus expansion. Some friends of mine I was lvling with queued up for a dungeon the moment I hit 27, I had no clue where it was, why it was there, and I was wondering how I even got in without unlocking it. After the dungeon I was in a place I hadnt been before. The entire experience felt completely random and its clear the devs of TERA only use quests as a lvling device and put little to no care into it, they dont even require you to do main story and you can get all of your lvls powerleveling 1.0 style (chain packs of mobs and let low lvls tag and kill). Theres nothing like trying out other mmos to revitalize your appreciation for the one you enjoy most.

Thank you FFXIV dev team for making an interesting world to go along with the gameplay.

[SDaemon]

As a side note, I tried TERA lately out of boredom and waiting for HW, that game has terrible cutscenes and dialog, and yes it seems almost every player is in it for loot and dungeon runs, it might as well be a vindictus expansion. Some friends of mine I was lvling with queued up for a dungeon the moment I hit 27, I had no clue where it was, why it was there, and I was wondering how I even got in without unlocking it. After the dungeon I was in a place I hadnt been before. The entire experience felt completely random and its clear the devs of TERA only use quests as a lvling device and put little to no care into it, they dont even require you to do main story and you can get all of your lvls powerleveling 1.0 style (chain packs of mobs and let low lvls tag and kill). Theres nothing like trying out other mmos to revitalize your appreciation for the one you enjoy most.

Every dungeon in TERA has a lore specific purpose. When you quest in the area that a dungeon is in, or any area really, there is an overarching story going on and it concludes with the dungeon (if there is one for that area and your level range). You use to have to form premade groups and met at the dungeon entrance, just like XIV once was, except now you can just queue into them when you hit the appropriate level range, just like XIV now. I haven't played TERA since the Wonderland-esque patch dropped several several etc etc months ago, but the base game had a very interesting Main Story to it.

[Sapphic]

second whoever plays an mmorpg for the story is seriously playing the wrong game, and thirdly mmorpgs are about gearing and gameplay not about watching a CS everytime you do a dungeon or fight a boss.

Yet Final Fantasy has ALWAYS been about the story and it surprises you that they continue in the same vein as, not just every single player Final Fantasy, but their earlier MMORPG FFXI. Which, if you had played would know that the main content for the expansions are heavily story and cutscene based. Or even had any background experience with Final Fantasy games.

Someone playing a FF MMO and NOT expecting it to be heavily story driven is playing the wrong game. There are plenty of bland no story Korean grind MMOs you can play, this isn't one of them. So either deal with it or realise Storycentric MMOs aren't for you.

Albeit I will admit putting such long cutscenes during the 2.0 MSQ final dungeons was a mistake on SEs side. Whereas the main CS should be at the end so you can watch it at your pleasure.

[Sapphic]

The negative people are always the loudest. A lot of you need to learn to speak for yourselves. Claiming that most end game players dont care about the story, only caring about gear and the next raid?

Becuase their ego and misplaced self importance makes them believe just becuase that is their preffered style that of course it must apply to everyone, or at least the vast majority. Based on experience with raiding in FFXIV, socialising with other raiders on Odin and just from the amount of players that post the cutscenes on youtube to share with others. The interest in seeing the story unfold during progression is pretty high amongst the raiding community here.

Not to mention players wanting a story mode of the raids to experience the story that has been posted about much more than once on the forums too adding to the overall happiness with it being story based. Don't forget the lore forums which is pretty active too showing even more that are interested in more than just getting the shinies.

But yeah, it pretty much turns into "I want this, so of course the vast majority must want it too otherwise if they disagree they are fanbois/girls. elitists, trolls (insert random insult meme here)".

[nuyu11]

Don't worry guys...
There is no lvl synch...
You will overpower behemoth later...

And I've heard from the rumors they said Alex raid is bit easier and savage mode also drop gear.
Don't ask me about the info validity.

[Dicejss]

I find it funny you guys are trying to bash me for generalizing how most end game players don't care about the lore in dungeons and raids. Yet you guys are also generalizing as much as I am saying how many of them do care. Do you really NEED to know why we are going into a dungeon to kill 3 bosses and raid their loot? No. But they still put it in there?Yes. Because there are people that care about lore for whatever reason that could be. It makes the game more polished and it's a nice touch to make everything fit in the world. But I still stand by my original thought that the story is still medicore AT best and that is why I lost interest in it at the end of 2.0.

Yes I still love the game for my mmorpg fix and it's the best one out there in my opinion but that doesn't mean locking every single dungeon, trial, ability to glamour, convert materia, dying armor, hunts, plus whatever other stuff they plan to wedge into the game is a good idea. Why not just appease both sides and make the quest to learn about the dungeon/trial optional instead of mandatory?

That stuff aside would you guys really be that badly butthurt to have glamour, materia converting, and dying armor to just simply unlock via reaching say level 10 or say available from get go?

[nuyu11]

Snip

Don't take it serious mate, it's human nature are like that.
And we are on Internet, the power of anonymous.

You Pay this game and it's your choice, that's why SE make it skippable.

[GenJoe]

Yet Final Fantasy has ALWAYS been about the story and it surprises you that they continue in the same vein as, not just every single player Final Fantasy.

You can assume what you want but I played all of FF games for the gameplay, I do know the general storyline for most of them, probably know it quite well for a few of them but really, for me RPG has always been about the sidequests and grinding to get that lv 99, 255 stats, etc.

I however, do realize that I am in the minority. But that still doesn't stop me from voicing my opinion when I feel like the issue could be so easily* addressed without even breaking the lore down.

We don't live in a Utilitarian society, and even if we did, there would need to be a way to quantify the harm vs. good.

Comparing the annoyance a majority of the player base may feel as a few jobs being released ahead of the lore to the annoyance (tad more than an annoyance imo) a minority of the player base will have in having to complete MSQ to 2.55 to access the expansion content.. That is not easily quantifiable and you really can't just play the numbers game using the number of people involved.

*Again, this is an arguable point because some people value lore far more than others. But in my personal experience, I've yet to see anybody say they'll be quitting the game due to the lore being inaccurate at points, but I have seen people quit because of the MSQ restrictions (usually in the crafting scene)

[Owatatsumi]

So with people being past old content like Extreme Primals or T5 and T9 for example when are they going to remove the requirement of having to clear them before the next ones are available? My reasoning is this when new players come to the game they have to clear this old content to open the newer content; but then trying to get groups for the old content pretty much never happens unless they just jump into DF. DF as everyone knows 95% of the time doesn't pan out to be a clear ever even with echo. THen the other side you have returning players who also need to clear old content and stuck in the same situation. So with Heavensward coming out are they ever going to get rid of these restrictions?

Also as a side note I think the whole let's do a quest to unlock every single dungeon/trial/new feature is really annoying, it should just become unlocked via reaching a certain level.

What your suggesting is just invalidating the FFXIV:ARR leveling experience. Only make it a slight grind & BAM Heavensward. A few problems with this. One, final fantasy is about the journey. Lots of work has gone into this content. It was just re-released a little while ago and frankly leveling up to 50 isn't that hard. This isn't WoW that has been around for 10 years. Two, if your plan goes into action new players will be into content they aren't ready for. Gear-wise and skill-wise. I can see maybe allowing players who have already gone through the content to get some restriction waved but not new players. The issue with this though is right now old players ARE playing old content. Change restrictions and new players are left out to dry. Not only do they not get to experience the full game anymore, only the expansion, which you view as the only worthy content due to having completed the main game already, but it can be confusing to have no clear path to follow. Guild Wars 2 did away with a lot of personal story (PVE main scenario) steps and is just now bringing them back. Though it is slightly different removing them caused lots of confusion for new and old players a like.

I personally like what SE is doing. They constantly add new incentives to do old content. They keep looping new quests back to paths already traveled. Not only does this keep these places relevant but it also creates an on going story. Add it all up and it makes the world feel like an actual place that is there whether the adventure is there or not. I'm personally tired of playing MMOs that just abandon the world they spent so much time on creating for the next shiny thing. I want to enjoy the whole world not just what's next horizon. What is the point of exploring if you never began your journey anywhere? Where is the sense of progression if you just flop around content aimlessly? You cry for fast-food but I crave French cuisine.

The proposed level un-sync is a nice medium I think. It allows players to get caught up but at the same time lets them keep the experience. (a side note: personally if they implement this a good trade off would be no skipping cut-scenes if there is a player who hasn't experience main story content yet or at least not leaving them behind while they watch. Almost quit the game because this happened to me. So frustrating.) But you also have the option to even do the content sync if you want the full experience, which I feel is better than the current echo for the raids.

Though I can see where your coming from I think there are better ways to address this that keep the game in-tacked.