Main Scenario Restriction Bloodstorm - Very Very Bad idea.

[bass9020]

XI kept most of the expansions separate and allowed you to partake in whichever one you wanted. You didn't have to clear RotZ to do CoP or CoP to do ToAU. Some of them you may have had to clear up to a certain point but you never had to fully clear in order to get access to the next part like you do in this one.

Well this is a different game so it doesn't need to follow every other game out there?

[Greedalox]

XI kept most of the expansions separate and allowed you to partake in whichever one you wanted. You didn't have to clear RotZ to do CoP or CoP to do ToAU. Some of them you may have had to clear up to a certain point but you never had to fully clear in order to get access to the next part like you do in this one.

XI's progression formula has such little resemblance to XIV's, it's actually hilarious that you're making a comparison. We don't have room to move sideways while XI was all about Horizontal progression, as you could see by the value of things like lvl 7 Leaping Boots. There were things to be had from the expansions that could be used indefinitely. The same is not true for 14.

[TarynH]

XI kept most of the expansions separate and allowed you to partake in whichever one you wanted. You didn't have to clear RotZ to do CoP or CoP to do ToAU. Some of them you may have had to clear up to a certain point but you never had to fully clear in order to get access to the next part like you do in this one.

No, but you still had to invest time in the stories to get anywhere in the game. You had to beat almost half of the main scenario to unlock most of the other expansions. You couldn't just walk to Sky by installing Zilart. You couldn't access Limbus without coming close to beating CoP. If I remember correctly, you had to progress through a certain amount of story to unlock the new jobs. You couldn't simply go to Aht Urghan and get BLU.

The only difference FFXI had from FFXIV, in large part, was the lack of a continuous story that spanned across all the expansions. However, certain content was absolutely gated behind part of the story.

What OP is suggesting, is skipping all the story and progressing straight to doing end-game content. They even mention raids and high end dungeons. Basically... no story, and all dungeon/raid content.

[ZhaneX]

Whether you think it unfortunate or not (Personally I like it) FFXIV is a very story-driven game. If you went right into Stormblood without say completing the Little Ala Mhigo segment of the ARR MSQ, or the Monk Job Quests, or the lead-in quests in 3.4 and 3.5, you would have absolutely no idea what the hell was going on.

Though I do acknowledge that having to parade through the whole story might be a bit much for new players who just want to fast-track to end game. And really, Heavensward's quests, 2.4-3.3, really have nothing to do with the upcoming Stormblood.
Perhaps SE could implement specific "Story Routes"? Like rather than complete all the MSQ linearly to access the newest content, instead you'd just have to do quests A-L-Z to head straight to Stormblood?

[CUTS3R]

There's more to this game than just the story. Anyway, if Bloodstorm areas are blocked off until you finish HW (with new Jobs locked behind it again), then SE dun mucked up. If it's specifically stories, then whatever.

Lock the story, not the content (cities, fields, Jobs, etc). Do as FFXI did.

I like the fact the entire exp is locked behind story, for multiple reasons. One of them being that it creates a RMT free environment in the exp areas.

[Nestama]

We've got maybe eight or nine(-ish) months until Stormblood. There's plenty of time.

Unless you are new to the game and only started playing because a new expansion came out (and only chose to start playing because a Job you like is finally in the game. Samurai or Red Mage, for example). If Jobs are locked behind the story again, then new players will be forced to level a Job they're not really interested in to 60+

If it's just story being locked. That's fine. If it's Jobs, then it's not fine and stupid.

[Remedi]

What OP is suggesting, is skipping all the story and progressing straight to doing end-game content.

Also that would increase the amounts of ppl complaining about no content

[Ayuhra]

I come here from World of WarCraft which fast tracks people to the latest content and....I don't care for it much there. The problem it caused there is everyone being funneled to whatever is most recent and the remaining 90% of the game is forgotten. New players are left confused, older ones are left bored and it makes the world feel smaller and smaller when it should actually be getting bigger.

The Main Scenario serves a purpose in keeping older content relevant and giving newer content some context. Roulettes keep older players going back to the older dungeons as does the ability to level multiple classes on one character.

I definitely hope they KEEP Main Scenario gating. Remember also that 2.x MSQ now awards raid-level gear that helps people go into Heavensward with a high enough ilvl to not get mowed down by every mob they see.

That said the MSQ could use some cleaning up. There are some pointless fluff quests that probably don't need to be there. Classes should probably not be gated either.

[Naunet]

Having to plod through the story quest - especially to unlock the class I resubbed to play - was the worst and very nearly made me quit again. >_<

Would be a HUGE mistake to lock everything behind two entire expacs of quests this time... Leveling to X level should be all that's required to access the content, and classes should be available from the start so long as you've purchased the expansion.

Let me do the story quests on my own time and don't wall off the entire game from me in the interim.

[loreleidiangelo]

Considering that a lot of primary complaints I see on r/MMORPG are about the mandatory questlines, I'm not sure this is the route to take. I think it's pretty easy for players already at the 60 cap to say, "what's the big deal?", but at one point having done an alt myself it was REALLY tedious having to do ALL the quests, and ALL the dungeons, all in a very specific "Square Enix approved" order. It's very...idk, funneled? So to speak. It doesn't matter if you find the narrative boring, or don't feel like running a dungeon at the moment: you can basically turd right off, is what it feels like Square is saying each time they make the MSQ for expac content mandatory. "YOU WILL SPAM-CLICK THROUGH OUR STORY AND VALIDATE OUR LEVELING DUNGEON QUEUES WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT."

I don't really understand this concept of, "people who aren't interested in XIV's trope-ridden cliche deus ex plotina storyline aren't people I'd want in MY community anyway". Seriously? You want your ever-diminishing pool of players to get even SMALLER just because you feel like the main scenario writing is modern-day John Milton, or something? I say this as someone who dutifully reads every questline and does the story content every patch. It's entertaining - to me. I can, however, wholeheartedly understand that it might be typical anime tripe to someone else. Does it really make some people that tilted that someone else might choose to opt out of the content that you love so much?