Dev team, please do not remove the importance of the MSQ

[Akonyl]

MSQ is just part of the leveling experience, you have to level in any MMO to get to the endgame raid content, and if you want to skip it, you can just pay to do it (in FF and other MMOs like WoW)

They're never going to remove leveling entirely when it's an MMO of all genres, and if leveling is still in the game, is MSQ really what's killing you or is it that leveling to max takes a while? Would you really just rather grind POTD forever?

[van_arn]

As true as if they don't mind they'll do it.

Besides, as much as there are quest that could be remove, the whole MSQ isn't FedEx as you say.

Or tell me, why are you playing a game that you think is a waste of time. I don't get it.

Because even if the questing sucks, the content is fun. I can skip the cutscenes.

A new player has to go through 150+ hours of fedexing that crap to even get to anything moderately ok. And yes, pray return to the waking sands is a meme for a reason. It's a crappy fedex msq.

*note: 150 hours of crappy fedexing is pretty much not even playing the game. That's wasting time between cutscenes or overnerfed, outdated content.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

Because even if the questing sucks, the content is fun. I can skip the cutscenes.

A new player has to go through 150+ hours of fedexing that crap to even get to anything moderately ok. And yes, pray return to the waking sands is a meme for a reason. It's a crappy fedex msq.

You mean a new player has to play the game? The horror! How dare they play what they paid for!

[Reap00]

I agree with you 100% OP. The story is one of the main reasons I play the game. I see all the tears about ARR but it isn't justified. Its a Final Fantasy game. All FF games are heavily based on story. You knew what you were getting into. I have leveled through the entire story on 5 different characters and loved every minute of it.

[SerLuke]

You mean a new player has to play the game? The horror! How dare they play what they paid for!

Yeah! 150 hours? It’s almost like we’re playing a Final Fantasy game with 2 full sizes expansions or something! I would never buy a Final Fantasy game expecting it to be as long as a Final Fantasy game!

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

Yeah! 150 hours? It’s almost like we’re playing a Final Fantasy game with 2 full sizes expansions or something! I would never buy a Final Fantasy game expecting it to be as long as a Final Fantasy game!

Especially in the grand scheme of things. My character has over 14000 hours of playtime, and I'd estimate only 10-15% of that is afk, as I don't leave the game on for long stints when I'm not around.

150 hours is nothing, pretty much only 1% of that total

[Ramesses]

The MSQ is not going anywhere because it forms one of the three main pillars of FFXIV's overall concept... the over-arching main storyline is one of the elements that makes it a superior MMORPG on a global level.

As mentioned a few times in this thread, if you find the MSQ unpalatable and not to your liking, please purchase some skip potions.

[Kiryuin-Satsuki]

Considering how story-driven XIV is and the fact that we're very soon going to be three expansions deep without any change being made to core formula of how new content has been implemented thus far, I don't think you have anything to be concerned about.

[linay]

I don't mind if they want to restructure MSQ so that the basic story is still being told, but people can go through it faster.

What I don't want is to make it optional/nonexistent so that dungeons and trials and raids can be entered just by reaching the right level and item level without them being tied to the story

I also don't want it broken up so you can skip parts of it and then come back and redo them later. Unless your story is about time travel, it should flow linearly and be experienced in that same order. If you use a boost, then your character should have done all of the quests leading up to the point where your boost takes you. Something like the inn or new game+ is a fine way of experiencing what you missed without affecting the actual progression of your character in the story.

Essentially, I want story and gameplay to support each other as much as possible instead of ignoring each other for the sake of convenience.

[Souljacker]

I don't mind if they want to restructure MSQ so that the basic story is still being told, but people can go through it faster.

What I don't want is to make it optional/nonexistent so that dungeons and trials and raids can be entered just by reaching the right level and item level without them being tied to the story

I also don't want it broken up so you can skip parts of it and then come back and redo them later. Unless your story is about time travel, it should flow linearly and be experienced in that same order. If you use a boost, then your character should have done all of the quests leading up to the point where your boost takes you. Something like the inn or new game+ is a fine way of experiencing what you missed without affecting the actual progression of your character in the story.

Essentially, I want story and gameplay to support each other as much as possible instead of ignoring each other for the sake of convenience.

Why? What benefit does this offer? Does this make the player somehow better at the game?

The story isn't great. There, I said it. Most of it is derivative (wait til you see shadowbringers! We've totally never seen this concept before!) and some of it is downright offensive. I remember one of our buddy npcs saying something like "I want to stay here and learn more about these people" and I was literally screaming at my monitor "I don't!" But I had to, because SE deemed it important for me to play through the storyline of a sexist faction in this xpac. I gained absolutely nothing of value from that story and it only served to deepen my disdain for the dev team's stance on a lot of things in general.

Really, historical story should be optional. There is nothing so crucial to playing the game in there that there is any reason to gate future content behind it.