Quote Originally Posted by OccamX View Post
Here's my issue. Remember how many people hated FF13 because you were basically stuck in a tunnel-shaped game experience for 20 hours?

FF14 is soo much worse right now. At least FF13 had gameplay along the way and an interesting story.

If you have been playing FF14 ever since 2.0 came out, you do NOT understand how much story there is, and how little gameplay, before the game opens up. The game is 90% dialog boxes for the first 50 hours, before reaching the actual MMO part of the game.
What are you talking about, 50 hours? It took you 50 hours to reach level 15? Nothing to do but story along the way? What game were you playing? As for getting faster, maybe you haven't heard about them doubling MSQ exp? What are you on about? The point of the game is not Coil or Alex you know? Those are fully optional side quests...

Quote Originally Posted by Reinha View Post
Citing your claims is debate basics and is not limited to scientific debates. Challenging an unproven claim is not a fallacy. It's a valid way to find out whether you are announcing your personal beliefs instead of facts, or if you are actually contributing something meaningful. I was just wondering if you had a way to prove you were actually right, no need to get defensive. People quitting because of story requirements is a fact, but what is not a proven fact is that SE is losing money over it. (<- That's your original claim if I understand correctly. I hope you are not moving goalposts now. If you were just stating that some amount of individuals quit over it and were not commenting on the total sub numbers, well, that doesn't really add anything of value and no one is in denial about it.) The story structure could be attracting in people who like working through attunements and/or being guided through the game via a single questline (like me for example). The story could also be a compelling reason for long term subscription as opposed to subbing for a month just to try DRK. You calling people delusional for not sharing your beliefs is equally as insignificant as a religious person calling non-believers delusional.



I answered this in the long thread, several times in fact. Last time I used myself as an example but now I'm citing an article about reward structures in games. This is to prove that making the story optional is not as minor a thing as you attempt to make it sound. I'm very curious if you're going to dodge the response again (or imply I'm sadist hahaha).

Gaining access to content is a reward, and rewards are designed to make the player feel like they are advancing in the game. Making the story optional is removing the access-gaining reward from the story. This would reduce the rewards for doing the story and therefore the MSQ experience would be less fun for some of those who would do it anyway (including me). Story gating is the same reward mechanism as gaining levels, as it gives players a sense of progress and a feeling of anticipation of the soon-to-be-accessed content. The following article points out that gating mechanisms indeed do have a psychological effect on players. Making the story optional would affect everyone, not just story haters.

http://www.digra.org/wp-content/uplo...1310.20247.pdf



TLDR: bolded
Well said.