Main Scenario Restriction Bloodstorm - Very Very Bad idea.

[Blood-Aki]

I'm starting to wonder if there is any point to discussing this anymore.

One side wants the MSQ requirements for things to die in a fire and anything less is completely unacceptable to them.

The other side wants it to stay but is at least willing to compromise in certain places.

I had 3 alts run through all of the story.. i know why people are complaning.. like a said in a previous post, the complaining is mostly from those who just want it easier to run an Alt through the game, any person who picks up this game that has common sense will know and understand you'll have to go through a story. that won't just be a quick scene and then move on. but after you do it 1-2 times then it starts getting to the "ugh!" point. that feeling when "i'v done this already, why again!" type of feeling.

A brand new player complaining about it is what is strange, as it makes little sense to pick up a game revolved around a story to just to hate going through it. it's like you knew exactly what to expect, to quote a particular favorite character of mine "They want to stand in the fire, and complain that it is hot"

[Neophyte]

I really feel like repeating myself over and over there...Why are they optionnal ? Because they're too challenging to forceeveryone to do them. Would you complain that doing the MSQ istoo...challenging ?

You feel like

All side quests, PotD, ex primals (yes, they have interesting story, too), other trials (Odin, Hildibrand, Triad normal), half of all dungeons, fates, beast tribe quests, relic, even class/job quests, most GC related stuff and PvP, normal/savage/24-man raids (Coil+CT+Alex+Mhach story), levequests and guildheists, goldsaucer ('mandatory' story content in FF7, why not here? They could have made it so, that you have to visit Goldsaucer in HW MSQ to get a toy for some moogles. Missed opportunity?),....

are to difficult to be mandatory? Haha, good joke.
And why not make them easier then for the sake of the story? To be able to enjoy every story there is, is most important, isn't it?
Or is it more important to cater to people who feel entitled for being able to beat those difficult content and to see this story exclusivly? Doesn't that contradict the general "FF idea" of "this is all about Story"?
What about people with physical disadvantages? It's more important to cater to MMORPG hardcore raiders, than to a player with the incapability to beat Coils, but who'd love to see what happened with Bahamut?
WoW, that's pretty harsh for "this a FF game", isn't it?


Also, if you want to count the monster farm or chocobo camp of FF-X (and idk, Blitzball league?!) then let me add Hunts, Treasure Hunt, Aquapolis, gathering/crafting quests, supply missions of GC, platoons, raising you chocobo and race chocobo, retainer and airship ventures, housing, Diadem, Triple Triad, Lords of Verminion and even tome farm (you get in touch with the story of Rowena) to that list.
Oh, are we already at 90% of optional story content in FF14 then?

And you're still taking it backwards. It's not that "those stories are optionnal duties so the game is not story based", but that "even optionnal duties have stories attached to them because the game put emphasis on stories". In a not-story based game, those duties would simply be "Go there, crawl".

So they are optional, they have story and people do them for those stories, although they don't have to.

But with MSQ that won't work. Because of reasons.

Your argument works better for my side than for yours:
Although huge ammount of story content is optional in this game, many people do enjoy them, so therefore they will enjoy MSQ even if it's optional.

Yes...if you haven't played any FF after IX...did you try X with the training camp ? XII with the Hunts ? XIII and XIII-2 with the achievements ?

Those aren't like anything near to 25% of all the story FF-X offers... in Terms of dialogue, interaction with npcs, cutscenes or accomplishing something which affects the world.
75% (or if you want to, make it 50%) of all story content you'll see while playing the game through to the end without bothering about optional stuff.
Not in FF14. After playing only the MSQ, you have seen only a tiny fracture (15-25%) of the whole games stories.

No, it fact, it is hurting the game. If you give options to skip a whole bunch of content, the Dev-Team won't make the same efforts to design them with lore and stories. And you'll have more and more complains about the lack of content. When a game is young, having little content is understandable.

Is this true for tv series, movie or book sequels?
Is the story of SW7 affected in a bad way, because (made up numbers) 10% didn't watch 4-6, 5% didn't watch 1-3 and 30% didn't watch the clone wars series or rebels?

Did they put less effort in the story of FF15, because there might be x% not having watched Kingsglaive or Brotherhood?

Did Baldur's Gate: Throne of Bhaal Story suffer, because you could right away start with that x-Pac instead of playing the base game first?

Is it true for FF14? Did the quality of beast tribe related MSQ quests suffer from beast tribe side quests being optional?

See, your argument is made up and lacks any proof.

But, if a new player comes on the 4th expansion, and burn anything relevant in a month, of course he'll be pissed by having nothing else to do than dumb grinding. We've said before that the MSQ is relevant on itself, that first time run in dungeons are relevant. Adding a skip potion is an official way of saying "No, it is not relevant anymore".

There is no reason the dungeons you say to be relevant to be gated behind/within the MSQ.
Placing a "Proving Grounds" (mandatory dungeons/tasks you have to do to learn the game first) makes your argument irrelevant.

You said yourself: "Everything is relevant when you do it for the first time".
Therefore the rest of your argument is also invalid.
After doing everything of the 4th Expansion, they can still go back to ARR and do "relevant" (i.e. new-to-them) content. When they "burn out" on grind stuff, they can take it easy and do MSQ whenever they want.

Relevancy doesn't depend on being mandatory. You said it yourself.

We are not being narrow minded, we know the implications of what you are asking. We are willing to compromise, yes a lot of MSQ is irrelevant, especially in 2.x, but the development team have vastly reduced the amount of fluff in 3.x for this exact reason.

I'll put some spoiler tags to show existing plot points that will make no sense in stormblood if you never did the MSQ

The griffin has Nidhoggs eyes, this does not make sense if the player never beat Nidhogg

The ascians plot has been constant throughout the 2 expansions and context is needed to further their plot - some of them being dead for example

The state of hydaelyn, as well as the information we know about her has changed vastly throughout the story, this will be relevant in stormblood

What you are essentially asking for is for a way to skip from chapter 1 to chapter 10, and then ask for someone to explain the story to you because you don't understand it. What our compromise is is that we know that filler arcs can be skipped.

To add... a short summary cutscene is not enough to provide adequate context for 2 expansions worth of story.

A player who intentionally skip the first part of the story won't be thaaat displeased, if he don't understand everything of SB story.
They don't have to cater to much to these people in regards of "what happened". There won't be a huge ammount of players who care heavily about the story but want to skip it.

The "what has happened" can be as short as possible, but done in such a way that it actually teases people to learn the details by doing the MSQ (even if they intended to skip it first). It teases people to not skip cutscenes, if it's catchy and makes you curious.

But I'm also fine with adjusting the MSQ. I just think it's kinda of more work to do this, compared to the other option. Such a thing would hurt SB or future story content, because of ressources.
The "what has happened" gets redeemed by people buying those option. The adjustment of MSQ has to be paid from the normal budget.

I had 3 alts run through all of the story.. i know why people are complaning.. like a said in a previous post, the complaining is mostly from those who just want it easier to run an Alt through the game, any person who picks up this game that has common sense will know and understand you'll have to go through a story. that won't just be a quick scene and then move on. but after you do it 1-2 times then it starts getting to the "ugh!" point. that feeling when "i'v done this already, why again!" type of feeling.

A brand new player complaining about it is what is strange, as it makes little sense to pick up a game revolved around a story to just to hate going through it. it's like you knew exactly what to expect, to quote a particular favorite character of mine "They want to stand in the fire, and complain that it is hot"

ITT: Peoply caring way to much about stupid (or also "unlikely"/"unusual") players and thinking that SE needs to to force them for their luck and fun, else this game and every future story gets likely ruined.

[Reynhart]

are to difficult to be mandatory? Haha, good joke.

Look how clever I am, I remove the most important of the content and then cornered you into making you answer not meaningful. And I purposely ignore the fact that quests like Hilbidrand and Odin are only here because fan requested it, than Beast tribe are here to be able to help leveling other jobs, and optionnal dungeon are here so that people aren't burned because of the narrow content...while still advocating to narrow the content even more by remoing any justification of doing anything before the previous level cap
/sigh

And why not make them easier then for the sake of the story? To be able to enjoy every story there is, is most important, isn't it?

Yeah, why didn't they do that with the 8-man raid in HW ? Oh, wait...
And they totally kept the Golds Of Eld storyline with EX Primals after Bismarck and Ravana instead of switching it to normal Primals ! Oh, wait...

What about people with physical disadvantages?

Yeah, let's screw deaf people and totally not add a visual mode so that they could have the same information than anyone else !

But with MSQ that won't work. Because of reasons.

Yes, because of totally justifiable Lore reason. Ishgard hate your guts, so it you're a nobody, they'd kick your ass out of the city.

Although huge ammount of story content is optional in this game, many people do enjoy them, so therefore they will enjoy MSQ even if it's optional.

No, because most of those optionnal content were offering relevant rewards when released. People did not farm CT and Coil over and over for nothing. If you give instant level 60 and access to Stormblood, those people won't do ARR or HW content, unless you force them to do it.

Those aren't like anything near to 25% of all the story FF-X offers...

But they are far more than 25% of the total playtime of your game. The main difference is that you already bought their game. The endgame could be crap, that it wouldn't change anything. In a MMO, you need to keep people interesting over and over, and dumb grinding alone is boring.

Is this true for tv series, movie or book sequels?

Do you have to buy the first book to be able to open the second ? Do we really have to explain the whole "expansion" concept to stop this stupid analogies ?

[CosmicKirby]

- Snip -

Uhh, remember how relevant we thought 2.5 was going to be in Heavensward? Most of the biggest events with the largest most sweeping implications were backpedaled so hard as to almost being retconned.
(Like, indefensibly hackjob plot-writing to accomplish sensationalist events that only resulted in about half of what should have followed. Because suddenly things aren't contrived anymore.)

I don't have the most faith that things such as, the WoD's plot will actually be that important ever again.

[Neophyte]

You're totally missing the main points. All your arguments only show that this game "might" be ruined for someone who intentionally skips the MSQ but then realizes that this was a bad idea, because he wanted to enjoy the Story.
They don't Show in any way, why you have to be concerned about those Players and why the game Quality suffers because of those few players.

Look how clever I am, I remove the most important of the content and then cornered you into making you answer not meaningful. And I purposely ignore the fact that quests like Hilbidrand and Odin are only here because fan requested it, than Beast tribe are here to be able to help leveling other jobs, and optionnal dungeon are here so that people aren't burned because of the narrow content...while still advocating to narrow the content even more by remoing any justification of doing anything before the previous level cap
/sigh

Beast tribes meant to be enjoyed just because of the story, too. I did all beast tribe quests (except Ixal) with lvl. 50 character. Did I do it wrong?

And also, no reason why they couldn't have been made mandatory.

Yeah, why didn't they do that with the 8-man raid in HW ? Oh, wait...
And they totally kept the Golds Of Eld storyline with EX Primals after Bismarck and Ravana instead of switching it to normal Primals ! Oh, wait...

Yeah, let's screw deaf people and totally not add a visual mode so that they could have the same information than anyone else !

Easier, but still optional. Since your main point was "they are optional, because they are to hard", which isn't the case anymore, this argument works for my side.

Also... Lore-wise I had the impression that it's kinda "mandatory" to stop Alexander, this doesn't get represented by anything in game.
We can clear SB, we can clear the next expansion and bahamuth and alexander will still slumber. That totally contradicts with the lore that teases us to do them (i.e. "they have to be stopped").

Do you consider this good design in a story-driven game?

Yes, because of totally justifiable Lore reason. Ishagrd hate your guts, so it you're a nobody, they'd kick your ass out of the city.

"Proving Grounds" can do that. You could have just no memory, like you did when you got ported into 2.0 as a non-legacy player... it's easy to come up with solutions to this.

I mean: Although the 1.0 story is kinda very important for everything happening in 2.0, nobody had to do it to actually access 2.0.
Is this good or bad in terms of story (not in regards of keeping the game alive)?

Was the story of FF14 2.0 worse, because there are a huge ammount of People who didn't play 1.0 and therefore missed hundreds of hours of lore related to FF14?
I'd do the story of FF14 1.0, if I could, even if my characters are already in endgame of 3.0... most People caring for story would do... and so the same counts for players starting in 4.0 and doing 2.0 later on.

No, because most of those optionnal content were offering relevant rewards when released. People did not farm CT and Coil over and over for nothing. If you give instant level 60 and access to Stormblood, those people won't do ARR or HW content, unless you force them to do it.

So, no new player is doing CT or old beast tribes anymore (since you don't need the xp boost that much by now with PotD and buffed MSQ XP as compared with 2.2/3/4) at least once, since they're not relevant for progression anymore?
Isn't this kinda sad and should be alleviated by making it mandatory then? It's sad if such a good story get's lost, just because it isn't relevant anymore.
Nowadays nobody farms them anyway, even today if you do them it's mostly for the story, not for progression. This won't be changed a bit.

Also, you said "Every content not done yet is relevant"... so no, they do offer relevant content right now: Story.
Do you want me to tell that story isn't relevant enough?

But they are far more than 25% of the total playtime of your game. The main difference is that you already bought their game. The endgame could be crap, that it wouldn't change anything. In a MMO, you need to keep people interesting over and over, and dumb grinding alone is boring.

Ok, considering playtime FF14 story even shrinks to ~1% of your playtime then.
After finishing the MSQ, which you say can be done in a quite short time ("I have already seen leafs in Idyllshire"), they are in the same boat as everyone else and only have the grind and optional stuff left.
You expected 40h (which is more likely 150h)... so all you do by making the MSQ mandatory is keeping the players interest up (or better "keep him on a short leash") for 40-150h more than if they would skip the MSQ.

Do you have to buy the first book to be able to open the second ? Do we really have to explain the whole "expansion" concept to stop this stupid analogies ?

No. But I had to buy BG2 to play BG2:TdB. Did those X-Pac story quality suffer because I could skip BG2 story and everything from BG2 was explained in an "what happened" or withing optional dialogues with NPCs? Don't avoid that question again!

Here it would be the same... most people actually skipping the main game would be people who either are only caring for the game mechanics ("I want to play an high level AD&D mechanics video game adaption, so I skip right away to "endgame"") and/or have already seen the story, exactly like with BG2 and it's expansion. Please give me any hint you have, which indicates an other outcome.

[Reynhart]

They don't Show in any way, why you have to be concerned about those Players and why the game Quality suffers because of those few players.

Yes, they did, and you're ignorant if you think only a "few" will use skipping potions if they're allowed to. Like I said earlier, it's like putting powerful gear in the cash-shop (Like Savage gear) and expecting people to still run Savage every week "because of the challenge". And we all know how pay-to-win brought a healthty community, right ?

And also, no reason why they couldn't have been made mandatory.

So, no new player is doing CT or old beast tribes anymore (since you don't need the xp boost that much by now with PotD as compared with 2.2/3/4)? Isn't this kinda sad and should be alleviated by making it mandatory then?

So, you're complaining that MSQ is mandatory, yet your point is that more things should have been ? I thought you'd be grateful that all those things aren't mandatory. The fun part is that, one day, maybe they will, like Hard mode 2.0 primals and Qarn became.
I'll laugh really hard if doing CT becomes mandatory because Nero comes back in the MSQ (Since CT is not challenging compared to Coil regarding the return of Alisaie). Regarding that, it was very fun how many people felt compelled to do Coil, even in unsync, just because Yohi-P pointed out that it would have an effect on the story.

Also... Lore-wise I had the impression that it's kinda "mandatory" to stop Alexander, this doesn't get represented by anything in game.

Well, if you did those stories, I'm sure you fully understood why it wouldn't be a problem to not do them. At least if you cared about the story.

"Proving Grounds" can do that. You could have just lost your memory, like you did when you got ported from 1.0 to 2.0... it's easy to come up with solutions to this.

Yes, memory loss ! The most stupid and blatantly overused cliche in storytelling, let's do that !
It would be even more stupid than "It was just a sleeping potion..." Without considering that, if you only lost your memory, it means those event still happened in the past, yet you'd still have the option to do them ? They'd have to write a pretty big echo backstory and lots of cutscenes to justify that, and I'm sure it wouldn't take any meaningful time to develop, time that could be used for new things if people actually played the game in the proper way.

Although the 1.0 story is kinda very important for everything happening in 2.0, nobody had to do it to actually access 2.0.
Is this good or bad in terms of story (not in regards of keeping the game alive)?

For me, this is bad. But 1.x situation was too critical to not break a little consistency.

No. But I had to buy BG2 to play BG2:TdB. Did those X-Pac story quality suffer because I could skip BG2 story and everything from BG2 was explained in an "what happened" or withing optional dialogues with NPCs? Don't avoid that question again!

Can't tell, didn't play BG2. But FFXI allowed CoP without ZM or City Ranks and the story made no sense if you didn't play in the proper order, so yes, it suffered.

[Violyre]

I don't have the most faith that things such as, the WoD's plot will actually be that important ever again.

The WoD storyline played out to me like the Company of Heroes section plays out to everyone else: filler.

To fit their five major patch cycle, they had to do something. The ending of the Dragonsong War just feels like "we've run out of ways for Nidhogg to be a jerk." They added the WoD in 3.1, and they were basically cameo appearences until 3.4, where they kinda wrote them out completely. Could something happen? Yes. It could also not be referenced ever again.

But I digress.

Let me sum up my feelings about where the actual issue lies.

Don't gate jobs anymore. Let people get any job they want at 30. Putting all the new jobs in Ishgard was one of the worst choices ever, I don't care how much the lore requires Ishgard.

Mission exp is the main source of leveling, and honestly the majority of people who would buy the skip stuff are the same people who'll get to 60 in 12 hours, if that.

Don't remove MSQ requirements, but combine quests in a way that doesn't break lore. A number of quests may be impacted, but the speed of not having to go back to a zone after one far-away quest just to be sent to another far-away place to come back and do it again can be combined into one big quest to go do the others. Do I have to report back to HQ with every minor detail? I have a damn linkpearl to HQ, I can tell them about how I stabbed Thancred that way. Send me back only in-between arcs.

I could rant more, but my brain is too tired now.

[Lambdafish]

snip

Did you actually do the story or have you forgotten parts of it? Just because 2.5 is not relevant anymore does not mean it wasn't at all relevant in heavensward.

I'll spoiler tag some specific elements that not only cover Heavensward plot points, but one also hints at storm blood plot (yes, that's how important it is).

While you are right that the events of 2.5 are lacklustre, their resolution does take up a good chunk of the 3.0 story. I will concede that nanamos death was entirely an excuse to get us to ishgard though.

However:

Y'shtola and Thancred's accident proves to be a massive turn for their character arcs and is vital to the heavensward story and the evolution of the world as a whole

The disappearance of Minfilia similarly is a vital piece of the overarching puzzle and it was a considerable focus of 3.2

The death of the ascian in 2.5 served to introduce us to the idea of ascians being not so immortal, something which did not go unnoticed

2.5 marks the first time we learn of uriangers secret plot, something that provided mounted speculation throughout heavensward before coming to a close in 3.4

As for stormblood, 2.5 is the primary patch where ilberds intentions are put centre stage, and the relationship with Raubahn, Ilberd and Ala Mhigo is something that will likely be explored

As you can see, while the main plot is no longer relevant, each patch provides plot seeds that last for many patches, and while the WoD might no longer be relevant, the impact that they left, and the knowledge of hydaelyn that we learned will be relevant for a long time (I imagine the first, or even other worlds will be more of a talking point than the WoD themselves)

[Neophyte]

Yes, they did, and you're ignorant if you think only a "few" will use skipping potions if they're allowed to. Like I said earlier, it's like putting powerful gear in the cash-shop (Like Savage gear) and expecting people to still run Savage every week "because of the challenge". And we all know how pay-to-win brought a healthty community, right ?

So, you're complaining that MSQ is mandatory, yet your point is that more things should have been ? I thought you'd be grateful that all those things aren't mandatory. The fun part is that, one day, maybe they will, like Hard mode 2.0 primals and Qarn became.
I'll laugh really hard if doing CT becomes mandatory because Nero comes back in the MSQ (Since CT is not challenging compared to Coil regarding the return of Alisaie). Regarding that, it was very fun how many people felt compelled to do Coil, even in unsync, just because Yohi-P pointed out that it would have an effecton the story.

I said earlier: "I couldn't care less, if they actually add a jump potion. Myself only wants it for alternate characters anyway."

I'm not complaining that the MSQ is mandatory, I'm complaining that you People say that is has to be mandatory, else all those made up things would happen.
So I was just asking out of curiosity, 'cause your arguments can be used to demand making everything with story mandatory for accesing future content.

Also... on the one hand you say "FF is about the story. Someone not caring for the story shouldn't play FF. Someone not caring for story is likely not even picking up that game. See all those people demanding story for optional content", on the other hand you say "They need to make some story mandatory, else nobody would do it. Nobody wants to do optional content just for story"...

THAT DOES NOT WORK OUT.

Well, if you did those stories, I'm sure you fully understood why it wouldn't be a problem to not do them. At least if you cared about the story.

There is only no problem with bahamut resting under Eorzea only because nobody tells us a time frame and not that much time has passed yet... but the NPCs convey the urge to deal with that problem as fast as possible and not maybe in 1-2 years in-game time. It doesn't make sense to be able to clear up to T12, then be able to wait years of in-game time and events passing by (Ishgard joins the alliance, Ala Migho get's freed) and then thinking about finally taking Bahamut down.

Yes, memory loss ! The most stupid and blatantly overused cliche in storytelling, let's do that ! It would be even more stupid than "It was just a sleeping potion..."

Well, and still they used that "Sleeping Potion" and that even without the littlest need to do that. Wow, seems like they aren't the best story tellers anyway.
You don't have to care about that being a cliche, since you won't have that and people who skipped can care about that, if they actually want to and if they don't like it: Start a new character and don't skip?!

For me, this is bad. But 1.x situation was too critical to not break a little consistency.

Ok, so there are at least reason backed in the real world, which can lead to story skips being needed, which you would accept.
Nothing else was Yoshi-P saying when he said: "With growing content, we have to think about how many of those former contents should be mandatory." ---- and all the world goes crazy.

Can't tell, didn't play BG2. But FFXI allowed CoP without ZM or City Ranks and the story made no sense if you didn't play in the proper order, so yes, it suffered.

Wait... You claimed that the Overall Quality would suffer... like "if there are people skipping the writers will do a worse job creating future story".. yes, the story experience for that specific player skipping suffers... but not the story Quality in General, which is what you claimed!!!

You said "the Dev-Team won't make the same efforts to design them with lore and stories"... give me any proof to this or any hint at all!!!

Your point wasn't "future content won't make sense for people who didn't play the former", you were litereally saying "The writers will do a worse job then and more likely create lame stories."

[Neophyte]

Reynhart, you realize that you just stated that every side quests isn't relevant in the slightest?

They are like the worst content regarding leveling and gearing, one more dungeon run and you can forgo at least 10 side quests with 1 dungeon drop being 10x worth any side quest reward, if you don't care for the story.
They're almost only there for story/lore reasons... 7k xp and a normal quality gauntlet or 5 allagan tin pieces are no real incentive to do a sidequest, are they?

Still people do them enough, aren't they? Most people even seem to do (unsynched) coil, although it's not relevant anymore, beside it's own story and a small dialogue change...
But you're sure there will be no people doing the MSQ if you tell them, that they get more lore and more involved in the story if they finally do it (even if a bit later on, like the people who did coil that late)?


There are two absolutly contradicting claims here:
1. Most people play this game for it's story and most of them loves to do content just for the sake of story. If there is story included, most people would even do optional contents. Even if it's not relevant regarding progression anymore, they tend to do those contents at some point, just to see the story. (e.g. Coils)
2. With the possibility to skip many players will draw on that and only a few people will still do optional story content, which includes the MSQ then and every other content beside weekly tome farm.

That doesn't work out. Please make up your mind.
Relic trials are optional and outdated, still people do them just for the story, although they are skippable. This doesn't hurt FF14 in the slightest.

There is no hint, that the game for a no-skipping person gets any worse if some people are enabled to skip. I have many examples for that; Videogames (where the X-Pac is accesible without the main game), books, movies... you don't have a single one to back up your arguments, that story writing suffers because of something like that. NOT A SINGLE ONE.
WoW doesn't count, since it had never a good story to begin with... making everything mandatory wouldn't make it better, would it?... No, Blizzard would also have to put more effort into this, something SE does and I don't see why they should stop that, just because there are also people paying for skipping... the huge ammount still pays for the story and Yoshi-P knows that, why should they ignore the majority?

It's like you have people who pay you so they don't have to see a prequel to your movie.... would you make your sequel intentionally worse because of those people?
Does SE care for good stories or do they not? Decide.