Please change 2.1 - 2.55 story and don't add a level potion or let people skip story

[kuma_aus]

With the expansion fast approaching, there's a lot of people that have an opinion on what Yoshida should do about gaining entry into the new content. This is how I think would best suit Final Fantasy XIV.

When 2.1 - 2.55 main scenario quests were released, they were filled with quite a bunch of pointless quests. I know many players at the time did not care about these too much since it had been 3 months since they last did any MSQ. However for anyone new to the game from then on, it does become quite a chore to go through them all.

I think the best thing to do is focus on this part of the game before 4.0. The level 1-50 quests are somewhat fine for now since you are using these quests to level. The 1-50 quests might need a look into before 5.0 hits, but for 4.0 the 2.1 - 2.55 MSQ is a much bigger hurdle for new players I think. It does kind of suck that after the amazing climax of Ultima Weapon that you're doing some boring and useless quests. I really hope someone can sit down and look into them so that they become streamlined.

Apart from that, I really don't like the idea of a leveling potion or letting people to skip the story to catch up. The way Final Fantasy XIV is designed, it doesn't matter how new you are, you still get an almost identical experience as someone who first purchased the game a few years back. The only difference is that lower level areas are less populated. But with level sync and roulettes, people who pick up the game in 2020 will have the same experience during Sastasha as people right now.

Also the story in Final Fantasy XIV is continuous. What happens in 2.X is related to what happens in 4.X and so on. Other games have separate stories for different areas, so it doesn't matter if you start in an expansion area or not. But in XIV it all flows from 1 quest to the next. You let people skip the story and levels, you'll have them miss out on hundreds of hours of well designed content which ultimately makes the game smaller for new people.

Also finally I want to say that Heavensward has done an amazing job at fixing a lot of A Realm Reborn issues with regards to MSQ. The actual story has extremely limited useless quests (Just those dreaded moogles) and post 60 quests are just streamlined with good story. There are amazing solo battles like the Grand Melee and 3.4 MSQ story battle that also keep things interesting and fun as you go though them. If new people had to go through this kind of content to get to 3.0, there really wouldn't have been much complaints I think because of how amazing it was done. The search for Ga-Bu in 3.4 was the absolute max amount of useless content in MSQ that should be allowed though.

People will complain about needing to do the Main Story to reach the expansion, but if you give them good content to go through to reach the expansion, they will quickly forget about their complaints. 3.X MSQ is a clear example of good content that people can enjoy to reach an expansion and I hope 2.1 - 2.55 MSQ can be changed to be more like it.

[Norleas]

Honestly kinda hope that 4.0 for the most part is a whole new story. Then at least if they do let people skip content it'll be a bit more reasonable.

[Dualgunner]

I agree with trimming the fat off of the content; was always my problem with ARR's story. It was good just...stretched out.

[LiaShan]

Quality>quantity
Quests in 1.2x are far better than 2.x,
I heard that XI quests are even better,
Yoshida & his team should learn from XI, not WOW
(I was a WOW player but I hate it now after I tried XIV 1.2x)

[KitingGenbu]

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...-Very-Bad-idea.

[Norleas]

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...-Very-Bad-idea.

"Bloodstorm" what's that? Did 5.0 already get leaked?

[Talraen]

Quality>quantity
Quests in 1.2x are far better than 2.x,
I heard that XI quests are even better,
Yoshida & his team should learn from XI, not WOW
(I was a WOW player but I hate it now after I tried XIV 1.2x)

lol @ FFXI quests being better. Here's the difference between FFXIV quests and FFXI quests. In FFXIV, you have a quest that tells you to kill 4 rabid squirrels or whatever, and then you do that, go back to the quest NPC, and get a reward. In FFXI, the quest tells you to find a shining knick-knack, gives no indication of what drops it or even what zone it's in, it turns out to inexplicably drop from rabid squirrels at a 25% drop rate, meaning maybe you kill 4 or maybe you kill a dozen. Or maybe you kill 8 and figure "OK this isn't the mob that drops this" and stop killing them forever, at which point the quest remains in your quest log for all time, never to be completed. Except actually, since no quest gives you any information, you didn't have to figure out any of this because you actually used a Wiki. And you didn't even fight a rabid squirrel - you've never even seen a rabid squirrel, and maybe haven't even been to the zone where they spawn, because you bought the drop on the auction house for 1000 gil. And when you do finally finish the quest, and figure out who you were even supposed to hand it in to (because the game isn't going to tell you!), your reward is... fame. And maybe 50 gil. Fame, by the way, lets you do other quests which also offer a token reward. You only do quests because a.) they're there or b.) you need to grind fame to get your ninja scrolls or something. And if you just want fame, there are repeatable quests you can abuse instead.

Maybe you're talking more about missions, though. In that case, let's compare again: in FFXIV you unlock a dungeon or trial, you queue for it, and then you complete it. In FFXI, you shout in town for hours, and even though there are 50 people who could help you, no one does because they have no incentive to do so and probably assume anyone shouting in town for a mission is a newbie anyway. Or they would totally like to help you, but due to some random factor (being on a later mission that locks them out of helping, or being from the wrong nation) they actually can't. And then when you do get a party, you spend two hours going out to wherever the relevant fight is, and then you either wipe and have to start over (and half the party leaves) or you use the cheesy guaranteed-victory strategy from the wiki. Assuming you play a job that's part of that strategy. If you don't, well, I guess you'll need to level an entirely new job if you ever want to get to the next mission.

FFXIV quests are exactly the same as the quests in older MMOs, except they tell you what to do. There are a few quests in this game that don't, which they made to judge the interest in this sort of quest, and there doesn't seem to be any. It's nice to romanticize that a quest is more rewarding because you have to "figure it out yourself" but chances are, you didn't figure it out yourself, you went online and found one solution that someone else came up with. My biggest regret in FFXI is that, despite completing every story mission in the game, I barely know what happened because all I was doing was going through the motions. I actually can appreciate FFXIV's story because I'm not just reading off a checklist on my second monitor and using sneak/invisible to bypass literally everything else in the entire game.

[Alberel]

Honestly kinda hope that 4.0 for the most part is a whole new story. Then at least if they do let people skip content it'll be a bit more reasonable.

We can already see that isn't going to happen though since 3.4 has Heavensward events feeding directly into the catalyst for the new expansion story. It's also 99.99999% certain that the Griffin is Ilberd, in which case the events of 4.0 will make no sense to anyone that hasn't completed the story content of both the 2.X and 3.X patch cycles.

I agree with the OP. Instead of allowing people to skip story just streamline it so it's not crammed with pointless filler quests.

[Lone-wolfe-02]

Support this completely. It's much more reasonable and isn't a slap in the face for the players that did everything.

[MikeWW]

I really don't care if later story won't make sense if I don't know earlier story because IMO, the writing in FF14 is usually insultingly bad. For example, I still don't understand what the Ascians are trying to achieve... and what... I've been exposed to this so-called story for like 100-200 hours?

I don't even think FF14's story deserves to even be called a story, often it is just pointless dialogues made to accompany the endless amounts of fetch quests. Hildebrant and some other arcs are great, I think 3.3 was decent, and the English translators are brilliant but for the most part, I don't care at all for FF14's story. It was written by people who don't understand the fundamentals of storytelling. And the endless fetch quests were made by people who don't understand the fundamentals of good gameplay. Don't make them mandatory because the content sucks.