Allow MSQ Fast Track To Latest Expansion

[Theodric]

Unless your friends only play like one day a week they could come back now and easily have the MSQ finished by the time SB launches.

This.

If someone is truly interested in playing with their friends then there should be little issue helping them through older content. Not only is there an option to scale down to complete it normally there's the opportunity to do so at a much higher level and item level than originally intended, making it a rather quick affair to take a friend through a particular dungeon or trial pre-50.

[Makeda]

Unless your friends only play like one day a week they could come back now and easily have the MSQ finished by the time SB launches.

That's debatable.

I'm doing that - but I had a head start, I had finished 2.0 before I left the game some time back.

From 2.0 to 3.0 is a lot of quests and dungeons - about 100 quests. And they give enough gear to complete them.

But once you finish 3.0... from there to the end of 3.5.6 (or whatever the current number is), you must reach iLevel 230 before doing some dungeons, but you hit 60 and finish 3.0 at about 142-150 iLevel, IF you ALSO too the time to grind PotD for a kinna iLevel 255 weapon.

You will be blocked pretty quickly into the post-3.0 MSQs unless you do some side tasks to get gear. Hunts, roulette dungeons, etc... and PotD (which gives 60 lore, 30 script tomestones per 10 levels if you go as a level 60).
- That all slows down the ability to do the MSQ.

You need to be a very active player to do all of that quickly and get to iLevel 230 so you can finish the quests.
- And the roulettes... they are gated behind having completed lots of side-dungeons. I unlocked the level 50 roulette. It took me almost all of last weekend to do all of those dungeons that had not been a part of the 2.x MSQ... again doing 15+ dungeons in a day and a half is not something most players will do...
(particularly when half the dungeons are full of people who get rude when they realize you're new and aren't "doing it right". I've had a few cases of healers standing AFK waiting for me to wipe, and in one case the DPS as well, because I didn't do a mechanic the way "the community" does it... without offering any tips or explanations. I have a thick skin, I've been a tank since 2004... but a lot of players will give up when this kind of stuff occurs).
- If that happens in a dungeon needed for MSQ... people might give up 'on the way' through.

You can do it... but it's not easy or 'casual'... you need to sit down every session with a plan in mind for how to get as far through the MSQ as possible that day... including side quests/dungeons for gear to unlock the next MSQ step... If you're sending a friend in right now... help them with some good guides and websites like consolegameswiki or they won't make it by Stormblood launch.

[thegreatonemal]

Just get the person playing the game now and get them through it there's no rule that says they have to wait till June 20th to start playing.

[Tsubaki75]

I have friends who would be interested in coming back for the new expansion but will not because they are so far behind on the MSQ that it would take quit a grind to catch back up.

We may be getting jump potions and we may not be so I wouldn't count on it, truthfully though while it is a grind to get caught up it's not as bad as when we went through story. You can easily get caught up playing casually in a couple of weeks and they would only need to get to around i250 to be able to start the stormblood story at a comfortable pace. Since you mentioned that there was more than 1 of them you are at least 1 person short of a light party assuming you don't all main dps so waiting in df won't be as bad either. Mabye if they started back up in the beginning of June they can be ready for the expansion

[Gumbercules]

I guess if people are ok with missing out on story and "why" things are happening its ok. Just do not for the love of god don't mess with the story for the rest of us. XD Legion leveling zones design really turned me off to the idea of no "chapter" based lore XD. Though it mighta had more to do with it being designed around getting ppl to level cap asap (would on average be 8-12 hours of gameplay/lore) Then again I am a wrath of the lich king fanboi :P and the lore for that was incredible, you had the overarching story at all times while you trips through individual zones also had their story to tell. (and you didn't hiccup and were done with it)

[Lambdafish]

Why isn't your friend coming back now? They will be at current content long before stormblood comes out. Story content is never outdated content, for your friend who has never done it, it is the current content, and honestly they aren't missing much in the endgame right now.

Think of it like a TV series, your friend has a lot to catch up on, but they shouldn't skip seasons just to get where everyone else is because that makes no sense.

Having said that, I'm not so attached to your friends experience to deny them skipping, so long as it has no implication on mine

[Vhailor]

Yes I get that FF14 has a stronger emphasis on story compared to a lot of MMORPGs. I know someone without fail will show up in this thread and make a hyperbolic statement like "well if you don't like story content you should be playing a different MMO". However, even the biggest story enthusiasts have to agree that there is a large amount of filler dialogue crap that is not memorable and doesn't serve any purpose but to waste time.

A percentage of it is 'filler dialogue crap', but most of it isn't. The main issue in my mind isn't that FFXIV emphasizes its story; FFXI did the same thing. The problem is that SE made the rather stupid decision to chain storylines together, rather than creating parallel storylines. While there are certain advantages to longer, linked storylines, they are a very poor choice for MMOs, as we're seeing now.

Also, seriously, for players less interested in the narrative component of an MMO, there are vastly better options than FFXIV on the market.

Unless your friends only play like one day a week they could come back now and easily have the MSQ finished by the time SB launches.

Depends what point they're starting from. If they finished, say, 3.0, and are trying to push through 3.x, yeah, I'd agree. If they're starting from the end of 2.0, it's quite a grind, patience-wise as much as anything else. And if they're wanting to start a fresh character to ease back into things (which is what I did in January), finishing by the time SB releases would almost surely trigger burnout.

[LunaFaye]

Depends what point they're starting from. If they finished, say, 3.0, and are trying to push through 3.x, yeah, I'd agree. If they're starting from the end of 2.0, it's quite a grind, patience-wise as much as anything else. And if they're wanting to start a fresh character to ease back into things (which is what I did in January), finishing by the time SB releases would almost surely trigger burnout.

If you start a new character and skip everything and only focus on MSQ and dungeon unlocks, you can get from 1-60 and even gear in ilvl 230-260 gear within 2 weeks, and that's when playing only 4 or 5 hours every day. Done it with alts lately and it isn't big a deal. With potd even faster if you chose to do that, but then you will have to back track and do MSQ/Job Quests and unlock quests, which will most likely take much longer than just rushing through with skipping.

The grind starts, if we want to call it that, if they decide to do an anima weapon or more then one till SB releases, or wanting to fully gear (ilvl270) their job or multiple. That will take a while even with the scripture cap raised to 900 per week, since you gotta bother getting upgrade materials from the 24 mans (if you're not raiding) and we all know what kind of disaster that has been lately lol.

I am not against jumping potions, more alts for me, but it's absolutely not necessary at the current state of the game.

[Vhailor]

If you start a new character and skip everything and only focus on MSQ and dungeon unlocks, you can get from 1-60 and even gear in ilvl 230-260 gear within 2 weeks, and that's when playing only 4 or 5 hours every day. Done it with alts lately and it isn't big a deal. With potd even faster if you chose to do that, but then you will have to back track and do MSQ/Job Quests and unlock quests, which will most likely take much longer than just rushing through with skipping.

I don't think it's as trivial as you make it out to be, for a variety of reasons.

(1) Most people won't skip everything and purely focus on MSQ and dungeon unlocks. Not to say they can't, but most won't. Forcing players into a choice between taking reasonable amounts of time and stopping to smell the roses even a little bit isn't appropriate.

(2) Most people returning from lengthy breaks aren't as familiar with the process as you are. That's going to add time.

(3) Even by your (exceedingly conservative) estimate, you're still talking (4.5 hours/day on average) * (14 days) = 63 hours. Many people can't devote 4.5 hours per day to the game, though; if they're playing, say, 10 hours a week, it's over a month and a half JUST to get through the Heavensward story and gear up to i230 / i260. That's ridiculous.

In short, your tossed-off 2 week figure is relevant for people who know exactly what they're doing, aren't spending idle time on other tasks, and have significant amounts of time to devote to FFXIV. If all gamers fell into this category, I'd agree that the storyline setup is rather appropriate. Given this isn't the reality, though, I think jumping potions are needed at this point for SE to combat the grind.

[Lambadelta]

(3) Even by your (exceedingly conservative) estimate, you're still talking (4.5 hours/day on average) * (14 days) = 63 hours. Many people can't devote 4.5 hours per day to the game, though; if they're playing, say, 10 hours a week, it's over a month and a half JUST to get through the Heavensward story and gear up to i230 / i260. That's ridiculous.

It's like MMOs are meant to be a time sink, and the time sink we have these days is nothing like the days of old (in other MMOs) where leveling to max level took months.

Honestly if people don't like the idea of time sinks in an MMO then why play an MMO. Seems pretty counterproductive to me.