A thought on solving the content gating issue. Long read, pls bare with me.

[Luvbunny]

Skipping cutscenes and dialogue is exactly what my leveling experience in Heavensward was, so maybe? I feel that the experience I got skipping every cutscene from 2.1 through 2.55 really prepared my escape key skills for a whole new land of fetch quests :V

It is a very great skills to have especially when you have alts. Those juicy MSQ is awesome for the amount of XP they give you for mere minutes of works teleporting between areas. And you don't have to deal with toxic players in duty finders who argue about everything and anything and turn your 25 minutes run into 60 minutes of wipe fest, finger pointing and cuss words. What would I do without these MSQ giving me free levels....

[ThanMazus]

I don't like parties in the duty finder.

Per your own logic, if you don't like it - quit.

[Xuealin]

Ooooooorrrrrr... People stop whining and enjoy the game play story that they created for you and stop asking for everything.

[Dhex]

Would you buy and play any other Final Fantasy RPG if they removed the storyline?


Why buy a game and demand that you be allowed to skip playing the game?



What do you want? A skinners box where you just smack your face on the keyboard and get pretties for your ego?

[Xuealin]

I have a level 50 MNK and NIN but haven't even touched HW content because I wanted to keep my Cat girl yet have an Au Ra Astro so I made an alt. If you say HW min is ilvl90 then I think it is best for people to keep playing the MSQ. After I beat 2.0 story SE hands you both sets of AF gear so I was already ilvl90 without even touching tougher dungeons and raids like all of Crystal Towers. The story pushes you into more instances to unlock 3.0 yet making sure you have a serious grasp on your role before you dive into the tougher parts HW has to offer. Anyone saying to start at ilvl90 will just be a burden to any sort of pug/party then complain when they get booted or yelled at and probably quit anyways. I personally ran through all of the MSQ in a week. I can see someone with less time per day still doing all of that in the time since HW has been released so to continue to complain on this topic is pointless. Whoever said it took them 50 hours to get to level 15 did something wrong.

[Havenae]

The content gating 'issue' is not an 'issue' at all, it's just spoiled people who think that the subscription they're paying entitles them to have everything immediately, without any bit of work.

Actually it isn't right now. But it will be. As time rolls on and more expansions come, they can't expect fresh players to go through every bit of content from 2.0 on. Otherwise they should just expect to not get new customers.

Imagine, if you will, that today you just started an older MMO like wow or even Everquest, because you saw they had a cool new expansions out and you wanted to experience it. Now imagine if those games required you follow the main story from level 1 before you got to that expansion content. You're talking a decade or more of regular content. You'd likely reach it just before they were wrapping it up and everyone else who had been playing g was long past running it.

It's just not conducive to pulling in new customers. Right now it's not too bad although I'll grant you I've heard plenty of complaints already from new and returning players. They won't be able to pull this off again I the next one.

They at the very least need to remove some of the bloat quests from the main story.

[Balipu]

Wait what? Skip the entire game and all and start at 50 in Ishgard? AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
No.