A little scared of the future

[Sylvina]

The MSQ itself is the problem for new players at this point. You need to clear 400+ boring-ass fetch quests to begin to matter, and that's going to cause the exodus.

Not difficulty.

The only boring part of the MSQ is the part between ARR and HW.

[HyoMinPark]

The only boring part of the MSQ is the part between ARR and HW.

Beginning of ARR is really slow, too. ARR itself doesn’t really pick up until near Garuda. Ifrit’s storyline is kind of okay, but the Company of Heroes quest chain is literally nothing but filler and fetching.

[van_arn]

The only boring part of the MSQ is the part between ARR and HW.

I'm mulling over this sentence, and the further I get I'm more and more impressed with just how wrong it is.

I remember entire chapters of bad anime filler episodes, like helping the turtles do whatever, a cheesy billion-part fisherman chain, the gobbie cheese nonsense leading up to Titan, the abysmal post-arr content, Tsukiyomi stomping on things just to make sure we know she's a villain, Lyse's truly exceptional uselessness, Ascians plotting for... whatever villains plot for, talking to one npc right next to another NPC, teleporting across the world to talk to an npc only to teleport across the world again to talk to another NPC, very dull "find the pixel" telescope quests, find the <number of> sparkles in the <designated area>, minion assets used to make a budget version of the Triad, "walk 200 meters and kill 3 beetles" quests, and -- lest we forget -- PLEASE RETURN TO THE WAKING SANDS.

The kicker? Every single new player gets to experience ALL of this HUNDREDS of times over before they get into any content that requires two brain cells to rub together.

MSQ is a garbage requirement for new players. Half as long would still be too long.

Oh, let's not forget you're the chosen hero because you picked a crystal up off of the ground. Don't litter, kids!

[ko_]

I'm mulling over this sentence, and the further I get I'm more and more impressed with just how wrong it is.

I remember entire chapters of bad anime filler episodes, like helping the turtles do whatever, a cheesy billion-part fisherman chain, the gobbie cheese nonsense leading up to Titan, the abysmal post-arr content, Tsukiyomi stomping on things just to make sure we know she's a villain, Lyse's truly exceptional uselessness, Ascians plotting for... whatever villains plot for, talking to one npc right next to another NPC, teleporting across the world to talk to an npc only to teleport across the world again to talk to another NPC, very dull "find the pixel" telescope quests, find the <number of> sparkles in the <designated area>, minion assets used to make a budget version of the Triad, "walk 200 meters and kill 3 beetles" quests, and -- lest we forget -- PLEASE RETURN TO THE WAKING SANDS.

The kicker? Every single new player gets to experience ALL of this HUNDREDS of times over before they get into any content that requires two brain cells to rub together.

MSQ is a garbage requirement for new players. Half as long would still be too long.

Oh, let's not forget you're the chosen hero because you picked a crystal up off of the ground. Don't litter, kids!

That's all up to the player tho if it's good or not. I just think it's all anime since it is. I only liked the later SB plots to be honest. On the whole wol thing... to be fair, there's not alot of ways to explain why you're choosen and why all the other players aren't. So I'm not gonna give them flake on that part.

[Kirsten_Rev]

If theres not a decent way to catch up in item level you end up with a mass exodus and no new players.

I think this is a deceptive statement. It implies that the MSQ is the only suitable mechanism to catch players up in terms of iLevel, for one thing - which clearly it isn't. I'd also suggest that XIV can avoid a mass exodus through other means via a vastly more horizontal itemization system. Indeed, in terms of catch-up capability specifically, I found FFXI to be far more accessible than XIV. Some of the best items in the game were well below level cap, and once you got something great, you could rely on it being useful for years. In FFXIV, that's simply not the case: at any point in time, BiS gear will be outside of the 10 best gear sets in two update cycles. That's insane. The best set of equipment available in 4.3 is surpassed by no less than five sets in 4.4.

For me as a player, this is exhausting. It means I have to keep running on the treadmill to avoid having to play the catch-up game. And that catch-up game, despite SE's efforts, is long and expensive: usually the most accessible points of entry are either Tomestone gear or Crafted gear, either of which requires significant amounts of time and/or money. In XI this wasn't the case: despite the game handing me absolutely nothing, what you earned was kept relevant. I took several months-long breaks from FFXI over the years I played it, and when I came back, the only catch-up required was in terms of exploring new content, not re-gearing my entire character and all its jobs.

The MSQ itself is the problem for new players at this point. You need to clear 400+ boring-ass fetch quests to begin to matter, and that's going to cause the exodus.

Not difficulty.

Wholeheartedly agree, and I'd add to that the fact that the same-y feeling of FFXIV's content updates really hits home when you're trying to zerg it just to get to current, relevant stuff. I should know, I joined a few months before Stormblood. By the time I hit level 70, I was mentally exhausted, and promptly backed off the game for several months. It was the gaming equivalent of eating a few gallons of ice cream, all of it the same flavour: no matter how good the ice cream, it would suck by the end.

SE desperately needs to stop tying so much of their content around quest progression. Want to run current instances? Better catch up through the MSQ. Want to access any of the current maps? Same deal. Want to access some of the 'side content' like Suzaku EX? Well odds are there's going to be a side-quest that has to be completed to kick off the Four Lords chain, and that side quest is going to have a half-dozen other side quests as pre-requisites. It's exhausting.

Let players do what they want to do. Decouple leveling, end-game instanced content, and the MSQ. It'll afford us the opportunity to have far more imaginative content in each of the three core areas of FFXIV, and I think it would make for a much more empowering experience for me as a player.

[ko_]

If theres not a decent way to catch up in item level you end up with a mass exodus and no new players.

I'mma be real mean here.. but there's a point. You wanna know how you catch up? Just play the game. Easy.Stupid.simple. SE doesn't need to hold back everyone else's progression just cause bob, tim, and lazy ass sara can't be assed to do a few dungeons a day to keep themselves up to date. Why should I have to deal with baby ass dungeons cause they can't play. If people leave, let them. How about SE treat the people actually PLAYING the game with respect.

[AxlStream]

The issue with the quests is that you are a freakin Warrior of Light. At this point we have killed about 20+ godlike beings and saved the realm how many times? Yet we are treated as little more than an errands boy. There is no evolution in how the NPCs see your character. They will still tell you to go kill 8 galecats or whatever.

[van_arn]

The issue with the quests is that you are a freakin Warrior of Light. At this point we have killed about 20+ godlike beings and saved the realm how many times? Yet we are treated as little more than an errands boy. There is no evolution in how the NPCs see your character. They will still tell you to go kill 8 galecats or whatever.

This is fair, and a great way to prune the MSQ.

Delete every quest that requires the WoL to do something that isn't WoL-like. Every quest. No longer shall he be the picker-up-of-things or the return-to-waking-sands-anon or the be-my-messenger.

[Bright-Flower]

What would you propose for a horizontal progression system to replace what we have?

Personally I don't really have a problem with the vertical system. Sure I'll take breaks from it now and then, but in generally I like gearing up and getting items, and wouldn't neccisarily want a pair of boots that are going to be better than anything I get for a couple years. I never played XI or any MMO with a horizontal system and nobody's ever really explained it in a way that makes sense to me.

[Kirsten_Rev]

What would you propose for a horizontal progression system to replace what we have?

Personally I don't really have a problem with the vertical system. Sure I'll take breaks from it now and then, but in generally I like gearing up and getting items, and wouldn't neccisarily want a pair of boots that are going to be better than anything I get for a couple years. I never played XI or any MMO with a horizontal system and nobody's ever really explained it in a way that makes sense to me.

I'd recommend a horizontal progression system that functions a bit like Diablo 2 / 3's itemization. However, first, let me explain a few reasons why I dislike vertical itemization:

(1) Item tiers are boring. There aren't any real upgrades: numbers just get bigger. There's no more a sense of power at i400 in an Expert Roulette than there was when we were all under i100 in ARR. Nothing impacts how we play.
(2) Items are rapidly rendered irrelevant, resulting in a treadmill sort of feeling.
(3) Large swaths of game content are rapidly rendered irrelevant, as well, resulting in a relatively narrow band of content to play at any given time if one is interested in progression. There's generally one 8-person Raid tier, maybe an Ultimate fight, 2-3 Expert dungeons, and the latest 24-person Raid. SE's only real tool to keep older content populated is Tomestone bribery and Roulettes, but it's an imperfect mechanism at best.
(4) Most instanced content and all non-instanced content (re: overworld creatures) are rendered largely toothless because of item level scaling, resulting in the relatively low average skill that we see in PUGs.

I can certainly respect that others don't have a problem with all this; to each their own. For me, however, it's largely shredded the enjoyment of sinking into FF's level cap game. I've contented myself for quite awhile now leveling up alts and playing with my significant other, but eventually I'll grow tired of that, and there's precious little to replace it right now.

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Now, for horizontal progression. As I said, I'd recommend something along the lines of Diablo 3. Essentially, gear in that game acts as a sort of 'skill tree' system in a way: every class will base their build around one of several item sets, and those sets will strongly control how the job plays. In FFXIV, this would have to be tempered most likely, but I'd envision an expansion in which, initially, every role (melee DD, ranged DD, tanks, healers, magic DD) would have maybe three gear sets that emphasize certain play styles, altering how some skills work at the expense of other skills. Maybe one build focuses on groups of monsters, while another focuses on utility in groups, and still another benefits low-man play. The details are obviously SE's responsibility.

As an expansion progresses in this model, instead of seeing gear completely replaced, we'd see maybe one or two new play style sets added, and also additional augmented pieces introduced, ideally in the form of materia (a wonderful system for itemization that SE has shamefully neglected over the years).

The benefits to this are obvious, from the player's point of view. One's item set selection is an interesting decision, and empowers the player to emphasize the style they're most comfortable with. Within the life cycle of at least an expansion, no content nor item is rendered truly irrelevant, because new gear that's introduced focuses on different styles of play, not being flat-out superior. Content and the overworld can remain appropriately challenging, because there's no perpetual scaling mechanism.

There are a few downsides, of course, but they're mostly on SE's end. This approach obviously requires careful balancing, and a development team not afraid to backtrack on decisions or tinker with things (in fact, I'd argue it would necessitate a public test realm). It also requires creativity on the part of the dev team, something XIV's current system absolutely doesn't need. There's also the inevitable risk in terms of the end-game meta, wherein certain base gear sets are objectively superior for the hardest content, but it's arguable that this sort of meta will always exist. If it's not focused on itemization, it'll focus on parse results and ability rotations, which is what it's doing now.

Anyway. Just my two cents. This sort of system is far more compelling for me, and would encourage me to participate in a wider variety of content. I've never cleared past Deltascape v2, as an example, because the storyline didn't interest me and the item rewards are invalidated within six months, so why bother? If I knew that Deltascape / Sigmascape / Alphascape dropped items for particular styles of play that I wanted to try, though...? Well, now there's incentive: because I'd only need to get the items once, and then I'd have relevant stuff to enjoy for many months to years. I might not be able to get the best of the best stuff from the Savage raid tiers, but I'd get a taste of it at least. To me, that's a lot better than what we've got right now.